Trump Calls For Live-and-Let-Live Approach to Intelligence Community

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pauses during a meeting with members of the National Border Patrol Council at Trump Tower, Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Yes, he needs to mend some fences before he officially takes office.

Things between Donald Trump and the intelligence community have been strained, lately. Much of it centers around the intelligence community’s belief that Russia has attempted to meddle in a U.S. election.

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Trump, on the other hand, wants to maintain friendly relations with Russia, and also feels that if the idea of foreign involvement in the election becomes a thing, it makes it appear that his win in November was less than legitimate.

To have a U.S. president enter office on a bad foot with our intelligence community is not a trend we want to encourage.

This is where I remind everyone: Russia is not our friend.

That being said, President-elect Trump appears to be making attempts to soothe tensions, ahead of taking office.

Amid a burst of tweets on Sunday morning, Trump quoted his counselor Kellyanne Conway saying in a television appearance Sunday that “we certainly don’t want intelligence interfering with politics and we don’t want politics interfering with intelligence.”

That seems to suggest a live-and-let live attitude towards the mission of the intelligence community, and how it serves the nation.

Reports earlier in the week suggested that Trump was mulling over the idea of cutting back or “restructuring” the CIA.  The timing of the report caused some to question if it was political payback from the thin-skinned Trump, but his camp has since denied that they ever wanted to meddle with the operations of the intelligence community.

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One thing remains a certainty: Our nation needs that the relationship between our intelligence community and our president to be as tension-free and open, as possible. We’re not at a place in the world’s history where we can tolerate any more internal conflicts, especially not between those who are tasked with protecting us.

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