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Trump allies clash with top intelligence officials in quest to declassify more Russia documents
As President Donald Trump and his allies continue to publicly dispute the outcome of the election, they are also quietly seeking to discredit the Russia investigation that has cast a dark cloud over the administration for more than four years.
Before Election Day, senior career intelligence officials and congressional Democrats braced for Trump's handpicked director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to release highly classified documents related to the FBI's Russia probe, which they feared would expose critical sources and methods.
Those concerns roared back this week in the wake of a flurry of personnel changes at the National Security Agency -- and the Pentagon -- as Trump installed political loyalists in key positions where they could help turn the tide in the behind-the-scenes battle over declassifying documents, which has raged for weeks.
Trump believes the documents in question will undermine the intelligence community's unanimous finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 race to help him win, by exposing so-called "deep state" plots against his campaign and transition during the Obama administration, according to multiple current and former officials.
But CIA and National Security Agency career officials have strenuously objected to releasing certain information from the Russia interference assessment, arguing that it would seriously damage sources and methods in a way that the intelligence community doesn't believe can be easily repaired.














