Donald Trump vs US intelligence services: Why the big rift?

Donald Trump has "declared war" on the US intelligence community, accusing officials of handing out classified information "like candy".

In a series of tweets yesterday, the President tried to divert attention from the growing scandal about his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and hit out at "very un-American" intelligence officials giving out confidential information "illegally".

Trump's tweets come just 48 hours after Flynn's resignation over the misleading statements the former army general had made about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador as a private citizen. It later emerged that Trump was told more than two weeks ago that the Justice Department had concerns about Flynn's conduct, prompting more speculation about the administration's close ties with Russia.

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Describing the "Russian connection" as "nonsense", he tweeted several messages attacking intelligence agencies and media outlets.

Trump has "declared war on his intelligence agencies", says the Daily Telegraph, while Time magazine says the leaks reflect uneasiness in the intelligence community about the President.

"All administrations leak and maybe particularly early on," Eliot Cohen, a counsellor at the State Department under George W Bush, told Time. "But what surprises me here is the extent with which you have people leaking against each other. This is unprecedented."

The magazine says the "leaks appear to be just the latest salvo in a long-running back and forth between Trump and the intelligence and diplomatic corps, though it's also possible that some of them came from other political and policy sources, including rivals inside the White House".

The "shaky detente" between Trump and the intelligence agencies broke down last month after he wrongly accused them of leaking the "dodgy Russia dossier", written by a former MI6 operative and containing unverified, salacious claims about his ties with Russia, says The Guardian. In one tweet, Trump likened them to "Nazi Germany", saying they should never have allowed "fake news to 'leak' to the public".

At the time Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer, told the newspaper the intelligence agencies face an "existential crisis" prompted by the imminent prospect of serving "someone for whom the truth is irrelevant".