President Donald Trump denied the report that claims Russia wants him to win in November.
The comment was made after The New York Times wrote an article on Thursday claiming Acting DNI Joseph Maguire’s aide informed the House Intelligence Committee that Kremlin plans to aid Trump to win reelection.
It is said that Russia wants Trump, and that the country will resort to hacking, weaponizing social media platforms and attacking election infrastructure.
Russia allegedly favors Trump over any other candidate, not only because it is beneficial to the Kremlin, they allegedly plan to stir mistrust on the integrity of the election process.
The report have been shared by DNI’s election security official Shelby Pierson during an election briefing to House members last week, in which Trump called as another “Democratic hoax.”
The President believed this information will be used against him, and was furious when he found out that Adam Schiff had been briefed about this report, and thought that only the Democrats were briefed.
According to sources, Trump had an infuriated confrontation with Maguire and perceived this act as staff disloyalty.
One former official said that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about to melt down when Maguire being forced out because of the said report.
This is also said to be the reason why Maguire blew the chance to be permanent DNI, and will be replaced by the ultra-loyal US Ambassador to Germany Rick Grenell.
Regardless of the integrity of the report, this incident caused a massive stir within the intelligence community and had deeply unsettled both current and former intelligence officials.
This has also raised concerns that Trump punishes intelligence officials if they provide accurate intelligence to House members that clearly have the clearance to receive it.
Trump has avoided commenting or hold meetings abut this subject, and continues to downplay Russia’s involvement in his 2016 election win.