CIA chief: Agency isn’t hiding intel from president

WASHINGTON — CIA director Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the agency is providing President Donald Trump with the best intelligence it can, disputing reports that the spy community is withholding information from the commander in chief.

“The CIA does not, has not, and will never hide intelligence from the president, period. We are not aware of any instance when that has occurred,” Pompeo said in a statement aimed at quelling reports that the intelligence community and Trump were in conflict.

He said news reports that the agency was keeping intelligence from the president are “dead wrong” and damage “the integrity of thousands of professional intelligence officers.”

Pompeo’s statement came on the same day that a senior White House official said the administration had asked a New York-based private equity executive — Stephen Feinberg, co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management — to lead a review of the U.S. intelligence community.

Feinberg has been asked to make recommendations on improvements to efficiency and coordination between the various intelligence agencies, the official said. His position was not to become official until he completed an ethics review, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

However, Trump later appeared to back off the idea, saying somebody else might not be needed because it could be handled by Pompeo, FBI Director James Comey and Dan Coats, the president’s nominee to be director of national intelligence who has not yet been confirmed.