In this and some of your other responses, I think you’re overstating how much the government knew the first half of 2016. As you note, some officials had their suspicions. Maybe even beliefs. But that’s different from high confidence intelligence assessments outlining the full extent of suspected Russian involvement reaching the president.

In June 2016, various media outlets reported that Russian operatives were behind the DNC hack. And on July 25, 2016, the FBI announced it was launching an investigation into the DNC hack. But as far as I know, the earliest the CIA informed the president that the DNC hack was a small part of a much larger campaign directed from the top of the Russian government was the August eyes only report. And other intelligence agencies didn’t come to agree with it for another month or so, in part because some information in the CIA’s assessment came from foreign sources, which the other agencies doubted until they corroborated it themselves.

The intelligence process can be frustratingly slow sometimes. It takes time for intelligence agencies to gather information and analyze it, and then more time to route it up the chain. But the alternatives are the government acting with greater uncertainty, or intelligence officials freelancing without executive approval, which both carry their own risks.