Donald the Reformer: Trump to Revamp 'Politicized' US Intelligence Agencies

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The team of US President-elect Donald Trump is developing a plan to restructure ‘politicized’ US intelligence agencies, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing a person close to the Trump transition.

"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized … They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact," the individual familiar with the matter was quoted as saying by WSJ.

According to the newspaper, Trump’s team plans to modernize the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by reducing the number of staff at the CIA headquarters, while increasing the number of agents around the world.

On Wednesday, Trump expressed "healthy" and "sincere" skepticism about the US intelligence community’s claims Russia interfered with the 2016 US election, US Vice President-elect Mike Pence said.

Trump also sided with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against the claims of the US Intelligence Community on the issue of the alleged Russian hacks. Trump repeated Assange's assertion that Russia did not give WikiLeaks information on the Democratic Party and its members.

The CIA has claimed that Russia was engaged in the hacking of US political institutions and individuals to help Trump win the US presidency.

A 13-page report on the issue released last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — seven pages of which provided recommendations – has been widely criticized for not providing proof. Moreover, the report contained a disclaimer that the DHS did not provide warranties about the truthfulness of the presented information.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in the US election, calling the hacking allegations absurd and noting that they are intended to distract the US public from revelation of corruption and other pressing domestic issues.