Julian Assange

On the one hand, U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia interfered in the American elections to benefit Donald Trump. On the other hand, sexual assault fugitive Julian Assange denies that Russia provided Wikileaks with hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

Guess who Donald Trump finds more believable? That’s right, the sexual assault guy who released the hacked emails in ways calculated to do maximum damage to Democrats.

x 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

To further underscore his reliability and truthfulness on this issue, Trump tweeted that “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” But according to intelligence officials, Trump’s briefing was always scheduled for Friday. And while intelligence officials can be tricksy, playing mind games with the president-elect on when a briefing is scheduled is probably not their speed. Perhaps this is the issue:

Trump on Tuesday did receive a classified intelligence briefing -- the Presidential Daily Briefing -- which Trump has elected to receive only sporadically. But it did not dive deeply into the Russian hacking.

Maybe … Trump thinks that if he decides to get the presidential daily briefing, it will magically be about whatever he’s currently most interested in? Then again, he apparently got the all-important Assange briefing, and what more does he need? Trump already knows what he thinks, and no stupid intelligence briefing is likely to make him think something personally inconvenient to him. If Julian Assange is the hook he has to dismiss uncomfortable information, so be it.