The nation's intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election by using hacking and fake news, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Friday.
"I think they caught us a little bit behind the curve," Coats told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt. "They caught us a little bit asleep in terms of the capabilities that they could do."
The DNI, speaking from this week's national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, said that just four of 17 intelligence agencies signed onto the January assessment about Russia because not all were involved in gathering and analyzing intelligence.
The discrepancy in numbers has been one of President Donald Trump's major complaints about those findings.
“Let me just start off by saying I heard it was 17 agencies,” Trump said earlier this month. “I said, 'Boy, that’s a lot.' Do we even have that many intelligence agencies, right? Let’s check it. And we did some very heavy research. It turned out to be three or four — it wasn’t 17 — and many of your compatriots had to change their reporting, and they had to apologize, and they had to correct.”
The CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, all were named in the January report, concluding that they believe, with "high confidence," that Russia interfered.
But even though other intelligence agencies did not sign off on the report, there is no disagreement that Russia is "trying to undermine Western democracy."
Several other national security officials from the Trump administration agreed this week that Russia meddled in the election. They all spoke at the forum.
"I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community," CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday. "This threat is real. The U.S. government, including the Central Intelligence Agency, has to figure out a way to fight back against it and defeat it. And we're intent upon doing that."
Thomas Bossert, Trump’s counterterrorism and cyber adviser, said he agrees that "there is a pretty clear and easy answer to that and that is yes," as did Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.
However, Trump still does not agree, commenting earlier this month that it could have been Russia, but at the same time, "a lot of people interfere."