Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has been highly critical of President-elect Donald Trump for months. Today, he penned a scathing Facebook post towards Trump, stating that he and members of the intelligence community feel a sense of “stunned disbelief” over Trump’s attitude towards the alleged Russian hacking into the presidential election.
Rather writes:
“Stunned disbelief. Anxiety. A mounting sense of betrayal. These are the smoke signals rising from those in and around the United States intelligence community over President-elect Donald Trump’s dismissal of the evidence of Russian hacking in the presidential election.”
Rather then took on a derisive tone to mock Trump, Fox News “reporter” Sean Hannity, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:
“Mr. Trump has taken the side of Wikileaks [sic] founder Julian Assange over the collective conclusion of those tasked with our national security. Assange, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity (who at this point must be considered a full-fledged propagandist and abetter) said he didn’t get the information from Russia. Well if he says so… Let’s just use that same standard for all of our adversaries. Nothing to see here. Why waste all these billions of dollars on intelligence gathering.”
Rather admits that sometimes intelligence communities have overstepped and been politically motivated, but also that the members of groups like the CIA are “deadly serious” about their jobs. He ends with a plea to leaders of the Republican Party to tell Trump how dangerous his rhetoric is, and concluding with a haunting image:
“Heaven forbid we suffer another horrible attack. Heaven forbid our intelligence community was hollowed out, wasn’t listened to or respected. These are the stakes.”
You can read Rather’s full post here:
Trump fired off a characteristically careless tweet after Hannity’s interview with Assange:
Julian Assange said "a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta" – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Trump’s praise of Assange is especially strange, considering in 2010 he called WikiLeaks “disgraceful” and called for the death penalty for their behavior. Watch the video of that exchange below:
Featured Image via Flickr: Peabody Awards (Photo Credit Anders Krusberg) /CC BY 2.0
