Jake Tapper attends Politicon at The Pasadena Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Invision/AP)

One of the bigger stories of the last 24 hours has been the revelation that the Russians are planning to interfere in the American election process again and that it is definitely in President Trump’s favor. Several media outlets are pushing this story in conjunction with the story that Trump fired the Acting Director of National Intelligence over the report.

CNN’s Jake Tapper, however, spoke to his own sources in the national security community, and has more information that runs at least partially counter to the media narrative.

A national security official I know and trust pushes back on the way the briefing/ODNI story is being told, and others with firsthand knowledge agree with his assessment.

Thread/

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

2/ "What's been articulated in the news is that the intelligence community has concluded that the Russians are trying to help Trump again. But the intelligence doesn't say that,” the official says…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

So right there, we see a problem that the information being put out there is not entirely accurate, drawing conclusions from information that is simply not in any intelligence report that’s been put together.

3/ “The problem is Shelby" — Pierson, the elections threats executive in the intelligence community — "said they developed a preference for Trump. A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it's a step short of that….

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

4/ “It's more that they understand the president is someone they can work with, he's a dealmaker. But not that they prefer him over Sanders or Buttigieg or anyone else. So it may have been mischaracterized by Shelby" at the House Intel briefing last week…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

Putting in context the Russian preference for Trump, this actually makes more sense, though none of this rules out the general consensus that the Russians are interfering in U.S. elections. Rather than doing so in favor of one candidate over the other, however, it appears it is currently happening the way it did in 2016, and it is apparent that the Russians are content to sow general discord in the U.S. elections process.

Tapper also goes on to put more context on the disagreement between Trump and the ADNI.

5/ "And by the way,” the official says, “both Democrats and Republicans were challenging this at the briefing."

Then there’s the matter of the tense meeting between President Trump and erstwhile Acting Director of National Intelligence Admiral Maguire…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

6/ “The President was upset that he had to hear about an intelligence conclusion from a Member of the House Republicans rather than from the intelligence community. So he was out of joint with Maguire on that process."

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

In other words… Trump wasn’t made aware of any of this, and the intelligence community reports to him. To find out about it from someone on the House Intelligence Committee rather than from the intelligence community itself is a problem for Trump.

Hence, firing Maguire and looking for someone more in line with his thinking on how this process should work.

I’m going to include the last two tweets of Tapper’s thread, by the way, though I know it will draw more pro-Trump readers’ ire.

7/ None of this disputes that Trump desires to replace those who have Intel expertise with partisan loyalists, or dismisses the larger issues and concerns about Russia and how the president seeks help from abroad.

Just that there seems to be more to this particular story.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

8/ ALSO none of this disputes that the Russians (and others) are attempting to interfere in the US election again.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

And while the first of the two tweets may sound accusatory to you… it’s objectively true. Trump has been replacing key officials in the intelligence community (and elsewhere) with more loyal figures, and while I could quibble with Tapper over the inclusion of the term “partisan,” the fact is that Trump is really just countering a lot of the partisanship he has experienced from the intelligence community since he became President.

It is, after all, his right as the chief executive to replace these security officials with those he prefers.

And, it is frankly undeniable to say that the Russians (and others) are attempting to interfere. They wish to disrupt the United States’ election process and, therefore, further divide the U.S. in an effort to weaken us. To think that malicious actors aren’t doing this is ignorance.

But the narrative that originally resulted from this briefing and the firing of the ADNI appears to be totally drawn from conclusions the intelligence we have simply does not support. Why wait for the Russians to divide us over fabricated online information when we can do it ourselves?