____________________________________________ 3 IICC Perspectives conflict with the intelligence system. In such a situation, as evidenced by recent events in the United States and Israel, the established rules can break down. Trump and the American Intelligence Community Since the establishment of the American intelligence community in 1947, the relationship between the president and intelligence has experienced ups and downs but has always remained within a well-defined framework. The 2016 election of Donald Trump, an unconventional candidate with distinct populist characteristics, changed the dynamic completely. The tension at the core of the relationship between the Trump administration and the intelligence community involved the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Published on January 6, 2017, one day before the new president took office, the NIE concluded that Russia had interfered in the elections, primarily through cyber attacks and influence on social media discourse with the objective of securing Trump's victory. Even a leader without populist traits would have been impacted by the publication and timing of this report, let alone Trump. The result was the intensification of his hostility toward the intelligence community and its perception, by the President and his allies, as a central enemy of the new administration. John McLaughlin, a veteran of the CIA and former acting director of the agency, identified four stages in Trump's relationship with the intelligence community during his first term. The first stage, ignorance, was the result of his total lack of experience in foreign policy. Trump's remarks following the first intelligence briefing he received in August 2016, where he claimed that from the body language of the people briefing him he could tell how much they opposed Obama's policies, reflected his limited understanding of the field and his intention to use intelligence for political purposes. President Donald Trump (Reuters)
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