Trump casts more doubt in a tweet
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US President-elect Donald Trump yesterday again cast doubt on US intelligence findings that Russia hacked the presidential election, repeating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s assertion that leaked information damaging to Democrats did not come from Moscow.
“Julian Assange said ‘a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta’ — why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” the Republican posted on his preferred communication platform, Twitter.
Trump was referring to thousands of e-mails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, which were published by WikiLeaks in the weeks ahead of the November 8 presidential election.
“Somebody hacked the DNC but why did they not have ‘hacking defense’ like the RNC has,” Trump added, referring to the Republican National Committee.
The US intelligence community has concluded that the hack-and-release of the e-mails was designed to put Trump — a political novice who has praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin — into the Oval Office.
Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the allegations that it was responsible for the cyber meddling.
In an interview with Fox television, Assange said Podesta’s e-mail account was “something a 14-year-old kid could have hacked.”
He insisted that no Russian government-linked party was the source of the hacked material.
“The source is not the Russian government. It is not state parties,” the 45-year-old Australian told Fox.
Trump has asserted that US intelligence services were mistaken when they said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, a finding that led the country into war, and has publicly and repeatedly questioned their work.
On Tuesday, he said that a briefing he is to receive from US intelligence officials on allegations of Russian hacking of the US election had been delayed until tomorrow.
In a tweet, Trump voiced continued skepticism about the extent of Russia’s cyber hacking. He and top advisers believe Democrats are trying to undermine his victory by accusing Russian authorities of helping him.
“The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump tweeted.
It was not clear when the briefing had originally been scheduled to take place.
Trump, who has cast doubt on the US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia hacked Democratic Party computers, said over the weekend that he would discuss the hacking allegations on Tuesday or yesterday.
With his tweet, he suggested he would not address the subject until he had been briefed by intelligence officials.
Trump has scheduled a January 11 news conference in New York. He is expected to discuss separating himself from his far-flung business empire, and other topics, including Russia, are likely to come up.
US intelligence officials have said they are confident Russia was behind the hacks of political figures in an effort to help Trump win the election.
President Barack Obama retaliated to the hacking last week by ordering the expulsion of 35 Russian intelligence officials.
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