On August 5, 2010, James Clapper was nominated and confirmed to be the United States Director of National Intelligence. He held this position until the end of President Obama’s term in office, after submitting his resignation on November 18, 2016.

Before Clapper resigned on January 20th, he was asked by Obama to coordinate with the intelligence community on the extent and impact of Russia’s influence in the 2016 election. Clapper was one of two dozen hand-picked experts to compile the documents, in which found that Russia was aggressive in their actions to use cyber technology to influence the election. On January 5th, President Obama was briefed on the information compiled by the Intelligence Community. The next day, Trump received the same information, followed by unclassified briefings to Congress in a series of 5 briefings from January 6-13.

In his May 2017 testimony, Clapper reveals that information was hacked from both political parties, but the Russians only released information pertaining to the Democratic party to WikiLeaks. During Clapper’s testimony, he addressed the concern of leaks and “lawful, authorized” unmasking as it pertains to the confidentiality of a U.S. person communicating with a foreign entity. Clapper testified that he did request one masking of Trump and his associates, but could not divulge any additional information.

In June, during a National Press Club event in Australia, Clapper stated that the Watergate scandal “pales in comparison” to the Trump-Russia controversy we are dealing with now and the firing of James Comey was “inexcusable.”

Sources:

  • https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/08/full-transcript-sally-yates-and-james-clapper-testify-on-russian-election-interference/

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