What is Trump basing his dismissal of the US intelligence officials’ conclusions on?
GOLF CLASH HACK DEC 2018 FULL
President Barack Obama has ordered US intelligence agencies to complete a full review of hacking in US elections going back to 2008 before he leaves office and Trump is sworn in to take his place. READ MORE: Trump’s tweets as President-elect, annotated It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. “They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. Every week it’s another excuse…No, I don’t believe that at all,” Trump said.
I don’t know why and I think it’s just – you know, they talked about all sorts of things. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s transition team said in a statement hours after the Washington Post reported Friday on the CIA’s latest assessment in a startling effort to discredit US intelligence officials.Īnd on Sunday, Trump called the assessment flat-out “ridiculous.” The President-elect and his transition team have been quick to rebuff the new intelligence assessment and dismiss out of hand any concerns about Russian influence in the election.
Time is running out for Obama to act – his presidential term ends in five weeks, on January 20 – and Trump, his replacement in the White House, could opt to reverse any sanctions or other punishments imposed on Russia. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing,” he told NPR.īut the outgoing US President didn’t reveal what form the country’s retaliation was likely to take: “some of it may be explicit and publicized some of it may not be,” he said.Ī variety of options are on the table, according to one US official, but everything is being carefully considered because “right now it’s like the old cold cyber war and the last thing you want to do is turn it into a hot shooting war.” Obama says he is determined to take action against Russia – and says Putin is “well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it.” The US intelligence community writ large is increasingly confident the Russian hacks were aimed at helping Trump, but the 17-agency intelligence community has not officially drawn that conclusion. Republican National Committee officials have repeatedly denied that their systems were breached, insisting instead that only individual staffers’ accounts were hacked.
Investigators also found digital footprints of individuals tied to the Russian government who had been on intelligence agencies radar before, as was acknowledged when the intelligence agency put out a public statement in October. There is also evidence that entities connected to the Russian government were bankrolling “troll farms” that spread fake news about Clinton. The CIA’s new conclusion was based on its latest and most complete analysis of intelligence on the hacking, including the finding that Russian hackers breached GOP individuals and organizations prior to the election, including Republican House members, thought leaders and non-profits to the GOP, a former senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the hack investigation told CNN. Then, earlier this month, the CIA announced to a group of top US senators its latest finding: that Russia’s hacks were aimed at helping Trump. Those hacks resulted in the public release of thousands of stolen emails, many of which included damaging revelations about the Democratic Party and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the party’s nominee.īut intelligence agencies didn’t go as far as suggesting the efforts were aimed at bolstering Trump’s chances and hurting Clinton’s. The US government publicly announced in October that it was “confident” Russia orchestrated the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations of the Democratic Party. What does the US believe Russia did to interfere in the 2016 campaign? So why is Trump so quick to dismiss intelligence agencies’ findings even as leaders of his own party express concerns about Russia’s role in the 2016 election? And how conclusive are the US intelligence community’s findings?
President Barack Obama has vowed the US will retaliate against Russia “at a time and place of our own choosing” for Moscow’s hacking attempts to influence the country’s elections.Ī growing chorus of powerful voices on Capitol Hill – including Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate – is calling for a bipartisan probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential vote.īut President-elect Donald Trump has rejected out of hand any suggestions of Russian influence on the election – despite the CIA concluding that Russia acted to help Trump win.
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