Tuesday's presentation was the clearest evidence so far of the effect of Richard Grenell

[dajoki]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/politics/election-interference-briefing-trump.html

<<snip>>

But for Democrats, Tuesday’s presentation was the clearest evidence so far of the effect of Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist who took over last month as acting director of national intelligence.

Before the day’s briefings, Kashyap Patel, a former White House and congressional aide who moved to Mr. Grenell’s office last month, met with intelligence officials and imposed limits on what they could tell Congress about foreign influence operations, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Patel’s comments struck some intelligence officials as an inappropriate politicization of the briefing. Some have been wary of his partisan background since his arrival as a top aide to Mr. Grenell. Mr. Patel was once a top investigator for Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and played a key role in helping Republicans try to undermine the Russia investigation by writing a memo that accused law enforcement officials of abusing their power.

The intelligence officials who briefed lawmakers did not intend to contradict last month’s testimony even as they avoided repeating the assessments about Russian interference presented there, according to a person familiar with the matter.

<<snip>>

[Coventina]

1. Horrifying.

How is this not criminal?

What are we going to do about it?

[2naSalit]

2. I would hope that

those who testify to Congress honor their oath and disregard the edict from the illegitimate regime.

[CrispyQ]

3. Kick.

We are in deep shit. How deep? Very deep.

[dalton99a]

4. "An attempt to minimize the threat from Russia"

Russia has once again stepped up its interference efforts, officials have said, exploiting existing divisions among Americans to sow chaos. In particularly, Kremlin intelligence operatives have sought to amplify the messages of white supremacist groups to try to incite violence.

The decision by the administration to speak so precisely struck Democrats as an attempt to play down Russia’s current operations.

“From what I read in 2017 and was briefed on, nothing has changed on what the Russians are doing,” said Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. He said that included the idea that the Kremlin favored Mr. Trump, but declined to discuss Tuesday’s classified briefing.

Still, many Democratic lawmakers were unconvinced and some said the briefing struck them as an attempt to minimize the threat from Russia. Others said Tuesday’s presentation should have been made public.

“The American people should know the threat that exists,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut.

[crickets]

5. K&R for visibility.