Trump's response to the CIA conclusion that the Russian government worked on his behalf to disrupt the American election has been, as usual, to simply deny that intelligence officials know any such thing. Trump is smart; they are dumb. Trump knows Russia's actions and intentions; the entire collected national intelligence infrastructure doesn't. His dysfunctional—and outright delusional—ultra-narcissism is expected to create chaos as Trump and his Flynn-led team steamroll over any presented data that conflicts with their own preferences.
Foreign policy and past top intelligence figures are already expressing extreme alarm over Trump's rejection of the intelligence he's been handed:
“To have the president-elect of the United States simply reject the fact-based narrative that the intelligence community puts together because it conflicts with his a priori assumptions — wow,” said Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the N.S.A. and later the C.I.A. under President George W. Bush.
Trump dismissing the intelligence presented to him is one thing. When Trump actually becomes President Trump, however, some former officers expect retaliation against those agency for their Russian assessments.
Former intelligence officers told the Guardian they considered retaliation by Trump to be all but a certainty after he is sworn into office next month. Trump still has several appointments to make at the highest levels of the intelligence apparatus, picks which are likely to be bellwethers for the new president’s attitudes toward the agencies.
“There is not just smoke here. There is a blazing 10-alarm fire, the sirens are wailing, the Russians provided the lighter fluid, and Trump is standing half-burnt and holding a match,” said Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer and interrogator.
“The facts hurt, Trump won’t like the truth, and he will without question seek to destroy those individuals or organizations that say or do anything that he thinks harm his precious grandiosity.”
This is akin to what the Trump transition team has already has done at the Department of Energy, where they have demanded a list of individual federal workers who have worked on climate change reports or attended climate-change related meetings. If Trump were to demand something similar of the intelligence committees—that the agencies tell him which individuals were involved in making intelligence assessments against Russia, with the intention of either delegitimizing them or simply exposing them to his supporters—the effect on intelligence-gathering itself could be significant.
Would Trump do such a thing? As mentioned, his team already is collecting similar personnel information at the Department of Energy. There's no question he might do such a thing. And he's surrounded himself with pro-Russian figures who have repeatedly peddled conspiracy theories about the actions of the American government while denying or brushing aside intelligence charges against Russian foes outright.
It's a recipe for all the worst possible outcomes.
