Ex-CIA Russia chief: Spies terrified Trump will burn sources who collect intelligence against Putin

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a USA Thank You Tour event in Hershey, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 15, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

David Edwards
24 Jan 2017 at 08:33 ET

Steve Hall, the former CIA head of Russia operations, revealed that the agency was having discussions about whether President Donald Trump would endanger the lives of sources who collect information that damages Russian President Vladimir Putin.

NPR national security correspondent Mary Louise Kelly reported on Monday that falsehoods told by Trump during a recent visit to the CIA may have done more harm than good when it came to repairing relations with the agency.

“He’s saying, I never had a problem with you to begin with,” Kelly explained. “It’s provably not true. In that same speech out of the CIA this weekend, Trump also falsely inflated the size of the crowd at his inauguration.”

According to Kelly, CIA veterans told her that they were insulted because Trump repeated the lies in a room memorializing CIA officers who died in the line of duty.

(More here.)