U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., February 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque The notion that the US intelligence community may be keeping some details about its methods secret from President Donald Trump reportedly prompted an angry response from the nation's commander in chief.

CBS News reported Friday that after The Wall Street Journal published a story citing US intelligence agents who said they withheld some details of their operations from the president over fears that it may be compromised, Trump phoned his CIA director, Mike Pompeo.

Trump "yelled at him for not pushing back hard enough" against the report, CBS News wrote.

Pompeo later released this statement in response to The Journal's report: "The CIA does not, has not, and will never hide intelligence from the president, period. We are not aware of any instance when that has occurred."

Some of the US intelligence officials cited by The Journal said they were hesitant to reveal to Trump the "sources and methods" that intelligence agencies use to collect sensitive information. Their reticence was apparently due in part to lingering suspicions surrounding alleged connections between the Trump administration and Russia.

Trump has had a tenuous relationship with the intelligence community since his election. The people interviewed in The Journal's report said that was one of the reasons for their reluctance to share their methods of collecting sensitive data.

Trump has frequently alternated between railing against US spy agencies and then praising them, as he did in January during an appearance at the CIA headquarters shortly after his inauguration. He has accused the same agencies of pursuing "politically motivated" investigations, on the other hand, as they concluded that Russia tried to interfere in the US election.