Former CIA officers on Trump Russia dossier: The intel community ‘is not in the business of reporting vague rumors’ to the president

The CIA and the FBI would not have briefed the president and the president-elect on claims that Russia has compromising information on Donald Trump if they did not take the allegations seriously, said former CIA operatives and analysts who spoke to Business Insider.

“Most of the information that passes across the CIA’s desk throughout the day ends up on the cutting-room floor because it’s not deemed to be credible or relevant,” said Evan McMullin, a former CIA operations officer who ran as an independent during the 2016 presidential election.

McMullin, who served as a chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, entered the presidential race as a conservative alternative to Trump and has remained harshly critical of the president-elect.

“The agency only brings information to the president or president-elect that they believe is highly relevant and that has some level of credibility,” McMullin told Business Insider in an interview on Wednesday. “So they knew the information they had was relevant.”

Read the whole story from Business Insider.