Trump has additionally used his Twitter account to speculate as to why intelligence officials would move his briefing from Wednesday to Friday, calling it “very unusual”, though a senior us intelligence official told NBC News that the heads of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the director of national intelligence were always scheduled to meet with Trump on Friday.
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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence just declassified a report on Russia’s bevy of election-swinging tricks that it rolled out in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, and it’s downright horrifying.
In assorted Twitter posts, Trump has expressed skepticism about the work of the USA intelligence services who came to the conclusion that Russian Federation and its president, Vladimir Putin, are behind cyberespionage activities that unfolded during the U.S. presidential election campaign.
The report said Russian Federation showed a “clear preference for President-elect Trump”, and carried out cyber attacks and issued propaganda both to boost his chances and to undermine confidence in American democracy.
“Before the election, Russian diplomats had publicly denounced the United States electoral process and were prepared to publicly call into question the validity of the results”.
Those actions included hacking into the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who briefed Trump, said Thursday that he was “more resolute” than ever in concluding that Russia’s government was ultimately responsible for the hacking.
“The intelligence community takes that quite seriously and that was evident from the extraordinary statement that they issued back in October a month before the election, indicating that they had concluded with high confidence, unanimously, that Russia had undertaken this effort and that this was an effort that could only have been directed from the highest levels of the Russian government”, Earnest alleged.
“Only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is that the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed!” He did, however, provide a broader perspective on the intelligence community’s view of Russia’s influence operation. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied that the emails came from the Russian government.
Obama ordered the interagency review after Trump repeatedly rejected and mocked statements by USA intelligence officials about Russia’s role.
Trump acknowledged in his statement that “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people” are consistently trying to hack U.S. networks, including the Democratic National Committee’s.
Hours before the president-elect tweeted his pro-Russian sentiments, Mr. Trump also officially nominated his own director of national intelligence, retired Indiana Sen.
In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, the real-estate mogul cast the focus on Russia’s election meddling as “a political witch hunt”.
The information in question concerns an in-depth NBC broadcast Thursday on Russian interference in the election, citing a top-secret report which was not delivered to Donald Trump until Friday.
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“I intend to push the envelope as much as I can because I think the public should know as much as possible”, Clapper said.
