The hastily assembled gathering on Tuesday night, led by John Ratcliffe, caught Senate staffers off-guard and heightened unease about the possible deployment of disinformation.
The nation’s top intelligence official raced to arrange a briefing for senators on Tuesday night, according to three congressional sources, after declassifyingwhat he acknowledged was an unverified Russian intelligence assessment.
The hastily assembled briefing, led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, caught staffers off-guard and exacerbated concerns about what Democrats said was the deployment of Russian disinformation to support President Donald Trump’s effort to discredit the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s contacts with the Russian government.
The episode also revived allegations from Democrats that Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman and a longtime ally of the president, is abusing his position to aid Trump politically by selectively declassifying documents intended to denigrate Trump’s political opponents. Much of that information has been revealed through Republican senators who are conducting investigations targeting those opponents. Continue reading.