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US President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe will no longer offer verbal briefings on the security of US elections. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that it will continue to provide written briefings to the House and Senate intelligence committees but will not guarantee in-person ones, CNN reported. An official said that the director of national intelligence is committed to meeting our statutory responsibilities and keeping Congress fully and currently informed. Point to be noted that the move was met with alarm by Democrats and former members of the Obama administration. Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff tweeted, “The ODNI has canceled all further briefings on foreign election interference”.

Schiff added, “The Administration clearly does not want Congress or the country informed of what Russia is doing. The last DNI was fired for doing so, and the IC has now been fully brought to heel”. A former director of national intelligence, James Clapper said the move just reinforces the pass Putin is getting from the US. He informed CNN and said, “I think it’s both amazing and disturbing that, here we are just over two months away from a crucial election, and of course we all know the history of 2016, where the Russians pervasively and deep invaded us and our political process. And now what I think is probably the single most important government voice on this, the director of national intelligence, is about to go silent”.

Clapper added, “It’s a new norm for me that appearing before the Congress is kind of optional. It certainly hasn’t been that way in the past”. He said that verbal reports were crucial because the back-and-forth of questioning can elicit important information. It is noteworthy that President Trump has repeatedly played down US intelligence reports that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He was publicly siding with Vladimir Putin over his own officials at a press conference in Helsinki in 2018. Security sources have said they believe the Kremlin wants Trump to win re-election in November and has also said they believe China favors Joe Biden as he is less unpredictable, something Republicans have seized on to boost their candidate.