I wouldn't go that far. This is ODNI's General Counsel saying that they would prefer to defer public attacks -- er, debate -- on any specific plan until a crisis occurs, at which point opposition will be muted. They can then take advantage of the climate to go full court press with whatever strategy has been preselected. Whether "preparing to leverage" is worse than "hoping" is up for debate.
That's a rather pedantic difference. What you're essentially saying is they just used weasel words that gives them an out instead of just blatantly saying what they mean.
