As the hacks targeting the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and individual Democratic officials rocked the presidential election, USA intelligence agencies pointed the finger at Russian Federation, which denied responsibility.
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The announcement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on December 12 comes amid growing alarm and debate among USA policymakers, elected officials, and the intelligence community about the extent and intent of the hacking. “It defies belief that somehow Republicans in the Senate are reluctant to either review Russian hacking, or ignore them”.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R. -Wis., in a statement called “any foreign intervention in our elections … entirely unacceptable”. “If you take a look at what [the CIA] said, there’s great confusion”, Trump said Sunday. “To that end, we also support the request from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to declassify information around Russia’s roles in the election and to make this data available to the public”.
He said McCain’s committee will focus on cybersecurity issues and the threat that America faces from cyber attacks. The White House has said the probe would focus on any breaches by other countries along with hacking committed in previous elections. Lindsey Graham have both agreed with the White House and intelligence community’s consensus that Russian Federation was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee.
Asked about McConnell’s support for a deeper investigation into Russia’s role in the election, Trump spokesman Jason Miller called the ongoing focus on the role of Russian hacking the election “an attempt to try to delegitimize President-elect Trump’s win”. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of the election, and that’s why we need a congressional investigation”.
New intelligence shows Russia’s meddling in the USA presidential election was more than just an attempt to sow chaos into the electoral process.
“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security“, Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta said in statement Monday.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, are calling for separate congressional investigations into the claims.
Trump continued to punch back Monday. On Twitter, he wrote, “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!“. “Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”
On the heels of Donald Trump calling the recent Central Intelligence Agency assessment of Russian hacking “ridiculous”, his senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Monday that the reports of Russian interference is more conflation from “election deniers”.
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Counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant Malcolm Nance called the actions by Russian Federation a “scripted intelligence operation”. There’s some intelligence community disagreement on that claim, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation insisting it is not clear that Russian Federation hacked the RNC.
