Ex-CIA official: Russian election hacking allowed by multiple intelligence failures

Michael Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA, in a new interview attributed Russia’s interference in the United States election to various failures in the intelligence community.

During an interview with The Global Politico, Morell referenced the failure to collect information and “a failure of imagination” in discussing Russia’s election meddling.{mosads}

“So, the failure to see this coming, and the failure to take some time before you actually see what’s happening is also a collection failure.” Morell said to Politico’s Susan Glasser.

“It means you haven’t penetrated the right places with the right assets — CIA and NSA are the two big ones here — to tell you exactly what the Russians are doing. So it’s a couple of important failures there.”

Morell also discussed a previous interview with former director of national intelligence James Clapper, in which Clapper said he did not know how prevalent of a tool social media was in Russia’s efforts.

“If that’s true, then it’s a failure of imagination that’s not dissimilar to the failure of imagination that we had for 9/11. Right?” Morell said.

Morell briefed former President George W. Bush daily leading up to and after Sept. 11.