President Trump greets supporters at the White House as he and first lady Melania Trump return to the White House on Friday. The president hardly needs to create a public furor to determine what the intelligence community knew about Russian interference, when they knew it or how they learned it. Trump’s public comments disparaging his intelligence community have already made it harder to recruit and protect sources. Trump’s threat to investigate their role in providing sensitive intelligence on Russia or releasing intelligence benefiting from foreign liaison sources will erode the trust required to maintain these critical relationships. But the worst problem is that Trump’s effort to demonize intelligence professionals further erodes the public’s trust in its institutions.

Source: Washington Post June 11, 2019 10:00 UTC