WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump on Sunday called a recent CIA assessment of Russian hacking "ridiculous" and said he's not interested in getting daily intelligence briefings -- an unprecedented public dismissal by a president-elect of the nation's vast and sophisticated intelligence apparatus.
Trump's remarks come as key congressional Republicans joined Democrats in demanding a bipartisan investigation into the Kremlin's activities and questioned the consideration of Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson -- who has close business ties with Moscow -- as head of the State Department.
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Asked on Fox News Sunday whether he's rejecting valuable intelligence, Trump was defiant.
"I get it when I need it," he said of the top-secret briefing sessions, adding that he's leaving it up to the briefers to decide when a development represents a "change" big enough to notify him.
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"I'm, like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years," Trump said.
The CIA has concluded with "high confidence" that Russia sought to influence the U.S. election on behalf of Trump. The finding alarmed lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., who said Sunday that he planned to put Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump critic, in charge of investigating the claim.
McCain also has questions about Tillerson's business relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although it's not clear if Tillerson will be nominated. Sunday afternoon, Tillerson had still not been formally offered the job, according to a person with knowledge of the process who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Exxon steadily expanded its Russian business on Tillerson's watch even as its rivals faced expropriation and regulatory obstacles. In 2013, Putin bestowed the Order of Friendship on Tillerson.
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"Maybe those ties are strictly commercial and got to do with his business in the oil business. Fine," McCain told CBS' Face the Nation. He added that the Senate will "give him a fair hearing. But is it a matter of concern? Certainly it should be a matter of concern."
McCain wasn't alone in raising questions about whether there would be enough blowback to sink a Tillerson nomination.
"Being a 'friend of Vladimir' is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState," tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump's former campaign rival and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said the developments "raise serious questions about whether the incoming administration will adequately stand up to Russia's aggression."
Trump said Tillerson's relationship with Moscow was a selling point.
"A great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company," Trump told Fox News in an interview broadcast Sunday. He called Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., impressive, and said former rival Mitt Romney is still in the mix.
"These are all very different types of people," he said. "But when you ask me about Rex, I mean, he's a world-class player. There's no question about it."
Later Sunday, Trump tweeted: "Whether I choose him or not for 'State'- Rex Tillerson, the Chairman & CEO of ExxonMobil, is a world class player and dealmaker. Stay tuned!"
Trump also rejected the CIA's conclusion that Russia tried to interfere with the presidential election and blamed "very embarrassed" Democrats for the public release of the assessment. The Washington Post first reported the CIA finding on Friday.
"It's ridiculous," Trump said of the CIA's assessment.
He added, however, that he doesn't necessarily oppose President Barack Obama's order for a review of campaign-season hacking. "If you're gonna to do that, I think you should not just say 'Russia.' You should say other countries also, and maybe other individuals." The White House has said the probe would focus on any breaches by other countries, and past elections.
Trump's incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, shrugged off allegations that Russia helped Trump win.
Referring to Hillary Clinton, Trump's presidential campaign rival, Priebus said, "The Russians didn't tell Clinton to ignore Wisconsin and Michigan," two states she was expected to win that went instead for Trump.
"She lost the election because her ideas were bad. She didn't fit the electorate. She ignored states that she shouldn't have, and Donald Trump was the change agent," Priebus said on ABC's This Week. Trump's win, he added, "had nothing to do with the Russians."
Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser and former campaign manager, called the notion of a Russian interference to defeat Clinton and help Trump win the presidency "laughable and ridiculous."
On Face the Nation, Conway echoed the statements made by her boss on Fox News Sunday that he does not believe the CIA's conclusion that Russia had meddled in the presidential election to help him win.
Face the Nation host John Dickerson pressed Conway about the growing rift between Trump and the intelligence community, and repeatedly asked how Trump, as president, could work harmoniously with the same intelligence agencies he has been criticizing.
Conway said Trump does respect the intelligence community, adding that Trump did not divulge top-secret briefings he has received as president-elect.
But Dickerson pressed further.
"How can he both respect the intelligence community and then think that what they're saying to him is laughable?" he asked. "There seems to be a disconnect."
Conway said respecting intelligence agencies and calling their own findings laughable are "completely compatible."
"He absolutely respects the intelligence community," she said. "He's made it very clear, he's going to put his own people in there as well."
McCain and Graham were part of a four-senator, bipartisan coalition that called Sunday for an urgent inquiry into allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
"Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American," the senators, who also include incoming Senate minority leader Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a joint statement.
Graham and Reed are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain chairs.
The statement said recent hacks "have cut to the heart of our free society" and require urgent investigation and action to halt the threat they "pose to our national security."
"This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country," the senators said in the statement.
McCain went further, in regard to the hacks, on Face the Nation. "It's clear the Russians interfered," he said. "Facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign."
McCain and Graham have long been critical of Russia. McCain called Putin "a thug, a murderer and a killer" on Face the Nation. Graham, in a Twitter post Saturday, said "Russia is trying to break the backs of democracies -- and democratic movements -- all over the world."
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and James Lankford of Oklahoma, both Republicans, also expressed their support Sunday for an investigation into claims of Russia's hacking.
On a separate matter, Trump, in his Fox News interview, departed from Republican orthodoxy by vowing to heavily tax companies that leave the U.S. and then try to sell products in the country "like we're a bunch of jerks."
"That's the dumb market," he said. "I'm a big free trader, but it has to be fair."
Information for this article was contributed by Laurie Kellman, Ken Thomas, Julie Pace, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Anne Flaherty of The Associated Press; by Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; by Tim Johnson of Tribune News Service; and by Kristine Guerra of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/12/2016