2 Views on Claims Our Spies Aren't Telling Trump Everything

"Information is illegally given out by 'intelligence' like candy," tweeted President Trump Wednesday. A new report from the Wall Street Journal alleges some of that candy is being withheld from the president himself. Some of what's allegedly being kept from Trump by US intelligence officials are the means by which intelligence was gathered. That's not entirely new: Past presidents have been kept in the dark about sources and methods. The new flavor here, per the unnamed current and former officials the Journal spoke with, is that those instances weren't "motivated by a concern about a president’s trustworthiness or discretion" as they allegedly are now.

Though there was friction between Trump and the intelligence community before he took office, it's the president's warm regards for Vladimir Putin and the nature of his team's interactions with Russia that have caused the misgivings, the sources say. The fear: that information could be "leaked or compromised." The report was quickly rebutted by both sides, with a rep for the Office of Director of National Intelligence plainly calling it "not true." How others are responding:

• The conservative Gateway Pundit writes "the intelligence community works for President Trump. President Trump does not work for the intelligence community. If the intelligence community is hiding sensitive information from President Trump then they need to be released from their positions immediately and an investigation needs to take place."
• On the left, Mother Jones has this from its own Kevin Drum: "'Inside' reporting about the intelligence community is notoriously unreliable ... but just the fact that stuff like this is getting a respectful public hearing is damning all by itself."

(More President Trump stories.)