CONTROVERSIAL – AT 1:39 P.M. ET:  The president-elect is planning some big changes in American intelligence operations.   From The Wall Street Journal: 

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump, a harsh critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, is working with top advisers on a plan that would restructure and pare back the nation’s top spy agency, people familiar with the planning said.

The move is prompted by his belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has become bloated and politicized, these people said.

The planning comes as Mr. Trump has leveled a series of social-media attacks in recent months and the past few days against U.S. intelligence agencies, dismissing and mocking their assessment that Russia stole emails from Democratic groups and individuals and then provided them to WikiLeaks for publication in an effort to help Mr. Trump win the White House.

One of the people familiar with Mr. Trump’s planning said advisers also are working on a plan to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world. The CIA declined to comment.

“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized,” said the individual, who is close to the Trump transition. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”

COMMENT:  This is a hot potato, even within Trump's own party.  There have always been problems with intelligence operations, especially when the intelligence turns out to be wrong. 

The Central Intelligence Agency was founded in 1947 to provide a central clearinghouse for intelligence information, free of the political slants sometimes given by intelligence units that were pushing particular policies.  It was something of a fantasy because the CIA itself is prone to developing its own view of intelligence.

If Trump can improve the intelligence sector, fine.  But even Republicans are apprehensive about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and how this might affect his view of intelligence.

Maybe the wise thing would be to appoint a bipartisan commission of eminent citizens to examine our entire intelligence apparatus and make recommendations for change.

January 5, 2017