on Twitter, praising U.S. special operations forces and intelligence personnel for their "courage, skill and dedication."

"Your continued success dismantling terrorist organizations saves countless innocent lives," he tweeted.

In February of 2017, less than a month after his inauguration, Trump tweeted that "the real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by 'intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”

In May of 2018, Trump claimed on Twitter that "Brennan started this entire debacle about President Trump."Trump and aides have said they suspect Ukraine interfered in the election – one of the topics of the call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that is central to the impeachment drive.

House Democrats are investigating whether Trump held up military aid to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate the 2016 election and U.S. Democratic opponentJoe Biden. The probe began after a whistleblower's complaint.

Throughout the process, Trump and his allies have accused the whistleblower of having links to the intelligence community. Democrats have accused Trump of seeking to "out" the whistleblower for political reasons.

On Sunday, both Trump and his critics praised the U.S. intelligence community – the latter group saying it performed well despite past attacks from the commander in chief.

Chris Whipple, author of "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency," called Trump’s praise “grudging at best.”

He also noted that Trump never used the term “CIA.”

“That’s no coincidence,” Whipple said.

Trump did not mention CIA Director Gina Haspel or acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire in his initial remarks praising the intelligence community but later thanked both in