CIA/INTELLIGENCE/MEDIA/SAUDI ARABIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “While some members of the US intelligence community have acknowledged that they are frustrated by President Donald Trump’s public rejection of the CIA’s assessment regarding the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, current and former officials accept that it is well within the President’s rights to be skeptical about information presented to him. Intelligence officials have been here before. At times they have appeared to break with the President on key issues, including the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and its belief that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has no intention of immediately giving up his nuclear weapons program. Some current and former officials note that Trump is certainly not the first or last President to make decisions that will frustrate many in the intelligence community, specifically referencing instances in which the George W. Bush administration disregarded information related to weapons of mass destruction that the CIA believed to be correct in the run up to the war with Iraq in 2003.”
–Zachary Cohen, “Trump revives familiar frustrations for US intelligence officials,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, November 21, 2018