Trump escalates campaign of trying to discredit intelligence community

Donald Trump has been waging an appalling — and deeply self-serving — campaign to discredit the U.S. intelligence community. The end game is, as was admitted by his senior advisor Kellyanne Conway, to replace the intelligence community with “his own people.”

Now, following a report that Trump may be compromised by Russia, and that his campaign was colluding with Russia during the election, Trump has escalated his descrediting campaign, taking to Twitter to cite Russia as a souce to refute U.S. intelligence assessments, and further asserting the U.S. intelligence community is turning America into Nazi Germany.

Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is "A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE." Very unfair!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

That the President-elect is telegraphing — again — that he trusts the Russian government more than he trusts U.S. intelligence officials is evidence of profound disloyalty.

Which underlines the very reason he continues to try to discredit the intelligence community: They are exposing the nature and details of his disloyalty the country as whose president he will be inaugurated in mere days.

Trump did not stop there, repeatedly calling the intelligence assessments “fake news.”

FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

'BuzzFeed Runs Unverifiable Trump-Russia Claims' #FakeNews https://t.co/d6daCFZHNh

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

This is not “fake news.” The news to which Trump is responding is, in part, an intelligence assessment, and, in part, allegations made by a former British intelligence operative, the credibility and veracity of which are being investigated by the FBI. Neither of those things constitute “fake news.”

If, however, Trump believes the assessment and allegations to be false, as he evidently does, there is a great way to establish that supposed falsity: A bipartisan, independent investigation.

If the facts are truly on Trump’s side, that would be revealed by such an investigation. In that event, Trump would benefit mightily from supporting a thorough, independent investigation.

So why does he not support one?