Editorial Board

Everybody Loses in Trump’s War on Intelligence Agencies

The U.S. needs to improve cybersecurity. But taking the feud to Twitter only helps the enemy.

January 5, 2017 at 9:54 PM UTC

By The Editorial Board

The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs.

Don’t tread on me.
Photographer: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

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On Thursday, the U.S. intelligence community struck back. Not at Russia, which it accuses of hacking the Democratic National Committee to destabilize American democracy and swing the 2016 presidential race, but at President-elect Donald Trump, whose recent tweets have called into question not just the agencies’ findings but their competence.

It’s entirely appropriate, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee, for the president to express a “healthy skepticism” about intelligence. But, he added, “there’s a difference between skepticism and disparagement.” What he didn’t add is that the president has crossed that line -- and in a typically public way.