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摘要

THE meeting on January 6th between Donald Trump and America's four most senior intelligence officials was never going to be easy. For months, Mr Trump had poured scorn on the conclusion of America's intelligence agencies that Russia had launched a hacking operation aimed at subverting the presidential election. Mr Hump was even more miffed by the recent allegation that the hacking had been intended to secure his victory. Although no view had been expressed by the intelli-gence agencies as to whether the Kremlin's efforts had affected the outcome of the election, Mr Trump suspected a ploy to undermine his legitimacy. Worse still, the agency heads had also decided to apprise Mr Trump of serious but unsubstantiated allegations that Russia had compromising material on the president-elect and on Russian contacts with his campaign team.