WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump made the decision to cast out his top intelligence official following a classified briefing to lawmakers about election security, according to reports.
The Washington Post and The New York Times said Thursday the president was irate after learning of last week's briefing to members of the House Intelligence Committee, concerned that officials had shared information that could be used against him.
Trump then called acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to his office the next day, when he ultimately decided to replace him.
"There was a dressing down" of Maguire, a source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post. "That was the catalyst."
According to the Times, the president's anger was sparked by an assessment from one of Maguire's top aides, Shelby Pierson, who told lawmakers that Russia has been interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, seeking to get Trump reelected.
Officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its election security office declined comment when contacted by VOA.
A request for comment to the White House also went unanswered, but reaction from Democratic lawmakers has been swift.
"I am gravely concerned," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in a statement late Thursday.
"The president puts ego above country," he added. "By firing Acting DNI Maguire because his staff provided the candid conclusions of the Intelligence Community to Congress regarding Russian meddling in the 2020 presidential election, the president is not only refusing to defend against foreign interference, he's inviting it."
The rocky relationship between Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies dates back to the 2016 presidential election, when the intelligence community concluded, "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible," the leading U.S. intelligence agencies wrote in an unclassified report released in 2017.
Those conclusions were backed up by a , which found, "the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome."
But Trump has consistently denied any Russian interference, repeatedly deferring to Putin's denials.
"He said he didn't meddle," Trump told reporters following a conversation with Putin in Vietnam. "He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times."
Still, U.S. intelligence officials have said, repeatedly, that not only did Russia meddle in 2016, but that it did so again in 2018 and that it would meddle in the 2020 presidential elections, as well.
"We expect will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies" per Coats, citing attack on naval vessels as sign of 's willingness to violate int' norms
"It wasn't a single attempt. They're doing it as we sit here," Mueller told lawmakers last July. "And they expect to do it during the next campaign."
More recently, U.S. allies have warned of the Kremlin intent to interfere in the upcoming elections.
"This year, for example, Russia's focus will certainly be on the U.S.," Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service warned in a report earlier this month.
"The main goal is to ensure a more beneficial election result for Russia by favoring Russian-friendly candidates or those who have the most divisive influence in the West," it said.
U.S. lawmakers have also warned about continued Russian meddling in a series of bipartisan reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of which cautioned the president against using election meddling for political advantage.
"The president of the United States should take steps to separate himself or herself from political considerations when handling issues related to foreign influence operations," a committee report issued earlier this month said.
The bipartisan Senate Intel report also urged that , no matter who it was, "should take steps to separate himself or herself from political considerations when handling issues related to foreign influence operations"
The U.S. has been without a permanent director of national intelligence since mid-August 2019, when Dan Coats stepped down following a over intelligence assessments.
Already, some former intelligence officials and analysts had been expressing concern about fending off foreign information operations from Russia and others without an experienced official to lead the intelligence agencies.
Now, with Maguire gone, their concerns are growing.