today she's not aware of a major intelligence community assessment that russia meddled in the 2016 election with the goal of helping president trump. upon hearing that, paul begala was among those who pounced, accusing nielsen of being either uninformed or fudging to curry favor with the president or willfully blind to the ongoing foreign threat that she was sworn to defend the usa from. her remarks were striking. it wasn't surprising when a spokesperson quickly tried to clean it up. quote, the secretary has previously reviewed the intelligence community's assessment and agrees with it, as she stated today and previously. just for review, that january 2017 assessment, on the web for all to read, it says, quote, putin and the russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect trump. we have high confidence in these judgments.