After Trump asks if “we even have” 17 intelligence agencies, MSNBC's Ali Velshi gives Trump a “quick tutorial”

Ali Velshi: “The lesson about the fact that there are in fact 17, only 4 of them ended up doing the studying on Russia” 

From the July 7 edition of MSNBC's MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi:

Video file

[BEGIN CLIP]

DONALD TRUMP: I heard it was 17 intelligence agencies. I said, “boy that's a lot. Do we even have that many intelligence agencies?” It turned out to be 3 or 4, it wasn't 17.

[END CLIP]

ALI VELSHI (HOST): Well, he was referencing how the media had reported that all 17 agencies agreed in a January report that Russia interfered but recently corrected that number to only 4. Now he's only technically right. Since only 4 agencies were directly involved in the Russia report. The CIA, the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency and this one, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This one complicates things because It's an umbrella group. So, Mr. President, here is a quick tutorial on how your intelligence community works. Here's the big 3. Plus the DNI. Then you add others into it. You've got the Department of State. This is where a lot of the work gets done in investigative work. You add the Department of Energy to that.

Let's keep on moving. You've got the Department of Homeland Security which is also an intelligence agency. The DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency does investigations, the Department of the Treasury does a lot of the stuff having to do with terrorism. The Defense Intelligence Agency does a lot of cyber work. That's what they do. And then you've got these. These are the armed forces intelligence units. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and the U.S. Coast Guard. You add that, you add all of these together and you end with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. They deal with other sorts of intelligence so that's how you end up with 17 of these things. By the way this one is another one. The National Reconnaissance Office. So that's why the U.S. ends up with 17 different agencies. And that is the lesson about the fact that there are in fact 17, only 4 of them ended up doing the studying on Russia. They put out a report. The DNI, which is the umbrella to all of them signed off on that report and those are the components that make up the intelligence community.

Previously:

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