There is little doubt that Trump was cutting deals with Russia PRIOR to the election. 
There is a REAL reason why the intelligence world refuses to give any member of trumps admin, except for 2, access to its information, ESP. dealing with Russia and its spies. 

However, CNN has to have its information accurate before posting.
If they used an unnamed intelligence person, fine, but they still have to vet every aspect of it. As a news source, CNN is supposed to be above the level of faux news. By coming down to the level of Fox, well, they might just as well hire a bunch of GOP for doing its reporting.