Donald Trump accuses Congress members of leaking classified information from security briefings

US President Donald Trump says Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has decided to stop briefings on election security issues for Congress because somebody, possibly House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, has been leaking classified information.

On Saturday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced that there would be no more briefings for Congress members and both House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence on security issues relating to the upcoming presidential elections.

"Director Ratcliffe brought information into the committee and the information leaked. Whether it was Shifty Schiff or somebody else, they leaked the information ... and what's even worse they leaked the wrong information. And he [Ratcliffe] got tired of it, so he wants to do it in a different form, because you have leakers on the committee, obviously, leakers that are doing bad things," Trump said at an event in Texas on Saturday.

Schiff said after Trump's remarks during the Texas briefing that the US president was "projecting."

"As usual, President Trump is lying and projecting. Trump fired the last DNI for briefing Congress on Russian efforts to help his campaign. Now he's ending briefings altogether. Trump doesn't want the American people to know about Russia's efforts to aid his re-election," Schiff wrote on Twitter.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of interfering in the US political system, saying such acts run contrary to the principles of the country's foreign policy.

In July, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs said the United States was not seeing the same level of hacking from foreign adversaries in this year's upcoming presidential election compared to the one held four years ago.

-ANI

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