Trump tweets on "serious" intelligence leaks to media
Continuing his criticisms of alleged intelligence leaks to the media, Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday afternoon to slam the “serious” issue once more.
He alleged in a tweet that “classified and/or highly confidential” information in an intelligence report on Russia hacking the U.S. election was leaked to NBC News.
The NBC article Mr. Trump is likely referring to quoted “a senior U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge” of the report given to President Obama on Thursday. The president-elect was later briefed on the report the following day. A 15-page declassified version was also released last week.
NBC, in its Thursday report, had quoted the source as saying that “highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow to undermine the integrity of the American political system.”
NBC’s report came after the Washington Post first published details of the intelligence review Thursday -- which included particulars on senior Russian government officers celebrating Mr. Trump’s election night victory and information on “actors” that had stolen emails from the Democratic party and passed them on to the WikiLeaks information dumping site.
Last week, the president-elect also threatened an investigation into the intelligence leak, tweeting that he would ask the respective chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committee to further scrutinize it.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump also went on to criticize NBC’s Sunday political talk show, “Meet the Press,” for reportedly editing an interview with Kellyanne Conway, the recently appointed counselor to the president in the incoming administration.
Though it has long been customary for television news outlets to cut down interviews to fit into limited broadcast air time, Mr. Trump blasted the “dishonest media” for their “terrible” interview in a tweet. He claimed that the morning show had “cut out 9 of her 10 minutes.”
Minutes later, he then retweeted the message message below from the news outlet, which included a link to a 10-minute long clip of Conway’s appearance on “Meet the Press”:
