The director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is frustrated that he has failed to convince US President Donald Trump yet that Russia remains a threat and that the country meddled in the 2016 American presidential election, a report says.
Mike Rogers made the revelation during a recent closed-door briefing to American lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, a congressional source told CNN on Wednesday.
The NSA chief also reportedly said the Trump White House was not much concerned about the continued threat of Moscow’s cyberattacks against US targets particularly the Russian effort to undermine the US electoral process, another congressional source told the news network.
The US intelligence community has raised alarm about Russia's cyberattacks, describing them as a "major threat" to the US voting system, and continues to brief the president about the issue.
An intelligence official told CNN that Trump seems engaged when being briefed on Russia's interference in the election, but he has vented his frustration outside of the intelligence briefings that too much attention is being paid to the ongoing investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the election.
However, White House spokesman Sean Spicer rejected these claims and insisted that the president is taking alleged Russian cyberattacks seriously and is quietly taking action against the issue.
"The United States continues to combat on a regular basis malicious cyber activity, and will continue to do so without bragging to the media or defending itself against unfair media criticism," Spicer said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Trump has slammed former President Barack Obama after The Washington Post reported that Obama was briefed about Russia's hacking activities in August 2016 but was not that interested in taking action about the issue.
"I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it," Trump told Fox News last week. "To me -- in other words -- the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? He should have done something about it."
Trump has repeatedly defended his crisis-ridden presidency and decried the "witch hunt" against him amid the sweeping probe of alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
This month Trump announced he was under investigation in connection with a probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in last year’s election that has dogged the White House and has intensified in recent weeks.
Trump is accused of firing FBI director James Comey over his refusal to steer the Russia investigation away from former national security adviser and Trump ally Mike Flynn.
The US president has denied trying to influence the investigation, but has acknowledged in an interview that Russia was on his mind when he dismissed Comey.