Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Wednesday that he finds the criticism of the Trump administration's use of intelligence from former officials "troubling," The Hill reports.
"I find it troubling many outside the current arena, including former officials, criticize the [intelligence community's] recent record and expressed concern about [its] capabilities with the president," Coats said at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit.
Coats' predecessor, James Clapper, said on CNN in August that President Donald Trump "likes intelligence on a selective basis."
"He seems to accept the intelligence on Korea, or on Syria, on China, on other areas, on terrorism, but when it comes to Russia, not so much," Clapper said.
Coats admitted that Russia has "assumed an ever more aggressive cyber posture," but focused more on how the government interacts with the private sector, calling on companies with federal connections to improve poor security designs.
"We cannot afford to have new products enter the market with these known vulnerabilities," he said.