As Donald Trump prepares to be sworn in as the 45th US President next Friday, America's proud democratic institutions are under siege.
Intelligence agencies, the media, the election process and the President-elect himself are shrouded in controversies.
Patently, there is a loss of public faith in important institutions – for different reasons by different people in a deeply divided country.
President Barack Obama said in his farewell speech this week that democracy is threatened whenever people take it for granted and when "trust in our institutions is low".
Trump on Wednesday censured intelligence agencies for their possible "disgraceful" leaking of a review of his links to Russia. He likened them to "Nazi" Germany.
Underlining the pressure the country's spooks are under, the independent Inspector General of the Justice Department announced Thursday he would investigate Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey's decision to inform Congress publicly just 11 days before polling day that he had re-opened an inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of email. The IG will also probe FBI and Justice links to Clinton.
Bill Clinton claims his wife lost the election because of Comey, whose review of the cache of emails turned up nothing.
Meanwhile this week, Trump denigrated as "fake news" reporting about an unsubstantiated dossier claiming that Russia compiled compromising information about his personal life, his finances and his team's alleged secret links to Moscow.
There is widespread consensus that Trump was right to assail "leftwing blog" and "failing pile of garbage", BuzzFeed, for its brazen publication of the unproven dossier.
The 35-page document outlines the lurid claims compiled by a British spy working for political opponents of Trump.
BuzzFeed retorted, unconvincingly, that it decided to let Americans "make up their own minds".
The FBI has been probing the unverified document for months to ascertain the accuracy or inaccuracy of the intelligence from a former MI6 spy previously said to be a credible source. It continues to do so.
In a press conference on Wednesday at Trump Tower, Trump steamrolled over the claims, highlighting errors in the material put together by "sick people" and saying he has "no dealings" with Russia.
Trump sidestepped questions about claims his associates met with Russians during the campaign.
Separately, it is known there are historic links between Moscow and some of his associates, including national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former adviser Carter Page.
Flynn, who was fired by Obama as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, has accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being a "very political organisation". He is believed to be behind Trump's distrust of spy agencies.
The intelligence departments have, separately, concluded Russia tried to help Trump and hurt Clinton in the election by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, and releasing the damaging correspondence to WikiLeaks.
On Wednesday, Trump reluctantly admitted under questioning that Vladimir Putin probably did direct the hacks, despite previously ridiculing intelligence findings that the Russian president orchestrated meddling in the US election.
In contrast to Trump, his pick to be CIA director, Mike Pompeo, on Thursday told a Senate confirmation hearing that it was "pretty clear about what took place here about Russia involvement in efforts to hack information and to have an impact on American democracy".
Also at odds with Trump, who has praised Putin and expressed hopes for cooperation, defence secretary nominee James Mattis listed Russia at the top of a list of threats and said Moscow was an "adversary".
To his credit, Trump has not selected "yes men" for his Cabinet.
Mattis did back up Trump's secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson's blistering warning against China's militarising of islands in the South China Sea, affirming that allies in the region would be enlisted to "confront" Beijing. Near its top that list is likely to include Australia.
US observers hope that Trump, a veteran businessman with little experience in foreign policy or covert intelligence, listens to his top advisers like Mattis and also takes the spy agencies seriously.
"If he doesn't it's going to undermine the intelligence community...and ultimately his presidency," William Cohen, a former defence secretary in the Clinton administration and ex-Republican congressman said, after endorsing Mattis at the general's Senate confirmation hearing.
Trump is entitled to feel aggrieved about a leak to media – plausibly but not necessarily from spy agencies – that top intelligence officials briefed him last week on allegations about an unverified Russia dirt file on him.
The dossier has been circulating for months among senior congressmen, senators and Washington journalists, who originally elected not to release or write about it without some verification.
In a rare statement on Thursday, outgoing Director of National Intelligence chief James Clapper said he phoned Trump Wednesday night to express his "profound dismay" at the leaks that are "extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security".
"I emphasised that this document is not a US Intelligence Community product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC."
"The IC has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions."
Director of the National Security Agency from 2006 to 2009, Michael Hayden, tells The Australian Financial Review the situation is unprecedented and "literally off the map".
"My sense is that the intelligence folks had a hard decision to make and they decided to tell Mr Trump about this vile dossier because if they knew it, others knew it as well, and they believed the President-elect should be aware."
"The kinds of comments he has made over the past several months about the intelligence community are very damaging to a body of people on whose work he will have to rely."
Face-to-face briefings
Television network CNN broke the news this week that the country's four top intelligence officials had delivered a two-page synopsis about the dossier to the President-elect – and President Barack Obama – in face-to-face briefings last week.
CNN justified the story by arguing that because intelligences officials had alerted the President-elect they were examining the document's contents, it was in the public interest to report this.
In the age of fast internet news, other media outlets quickly followed. But apart from BuzzFeed, no mainstream organisation released the lurid files or reported their detailed contents beyond high-level generalities.
In some ways, the reporting standard mirrored countless earlier media reports from unnamed intelligence sources about investigations into Clinton's emails and family charity that spoiled her campaign.
Trump smeared CNN as "fake news" and a "terrible organisation", berating a network reporter and refusing to take his questions.
The so-called "fake news" was very different to entirely fabricated internet stories during the campaign, such as the "Pizzagate" conspiracy that Clinton associates were running a paedophilia and human trafficking ring at a Washington restaurant.
That vile falsehood led a believer of the story to fire an AR-15 assault rifle in a Washington pizzeria as part of his own search for the sex slaves in December.
Trump's conflation of CNN with the irresponsible BuzzFeed and more serious "fake news" may be politically clever. It will confirm in the minds of many Trump voters that the "biased" and "left-wing" media – like CNN – is out to hang Trump.
There may be a degree of truth to that. The media has rigorously tried to hold Trump to account on failing to publish his tax returns, potential business conflicts of interest and sharp rhetoric – issues that about half of American voters didn't seem to care much about at the election.
Lurid files
But the reality is CNN acted in line with other mainstream media organisations. The news outlets did not release the lurid files or report their salacious details, beyond saying the FBI was examining unverified allegations in a dossier on the President-elect's personal life, finances and his team's secret links to Moscow.
CNN appeared to pay the price because it first broke the news that Trump and Obama were handed a briefing on the dubious Russia dossier, which BuzzFeed then published.
In true divide and conquer style, Trump made an example of the TV network and thanked other "incredibly professional" news organisations including The New York Times – in perhaps a warning shot to other media – for their slightly less intense coverage.
In any event Trump will continue to go over the top of the fourth estate traditional media in 140-character tweets.
All institutions will be kept on their toes by the Trump shake-up.
