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Posted: 2016-12-09T01:28:16Z | Updated: 2016-12-09T04:22:46Z

WASHINGTON - President-elect Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors.

Although they are not required to, presidents-elect have in the past generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the Presidents Daily Brief (PDB), the most highly classified and closely held document in the government, on a regular basis.

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It was not immediately clear why Trump has decided not to receive the intelligence briefings available to President Barack Obama more frequently, or whether that has made any difference in his presidential preparations.

An official on the transition team said on Thursday that Trump has been receiving national security briefings, including routine PDBs and other special briefings, but declined to specify their content or frequency, saying these matters were classified.

Trump has asked for at least one briefing, and possibly more, from intelligence agencies on specific subjects, one of the officials said. The source declined to identify what subjects interested the president-elect, but said that so far they have not included Russia or France.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence , Trumps vice president-elect, has been receiving his own PDB at least six days a week, the sources familiar with the matter said.

Former Central Intelligence Agency briefer David Priess, the author of a book about PDBs, said that traditionally, Trump and Pences predecessors sat for daily or near-daily intelligence briefings between their elections and their inaugurations.

He said Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did not start receiving their daily briefings until later in November, while the delayed election result in 2000 meant that George W. Bush did not start receiving his until December.

The briefings are not compulsory. Priess said that after his first election, Richard Nixon spurned face-to-face briefings, so paper PDBs were delivered to his office, only for a stack of them to be later returned to the CIA, unopened.

Trumps casual attitude to the briefings attracted criticism from Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

It is deeply disturbing that the president-elect has time for rallies but not for regular intelligence briefings, Schiff said.

During the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election, Trump and a handful of advisers received at least two briefings from intelligence officials about broad national security issues.