President-elect Donald Trump yesterday doubled down in dismissing CIA intelligence that Russia interfered in the US election, even as leading senators from both camps demanded a broad probe on the apparent national security threat.
Trump repeated his rejection of Central Intelligence Agency conclusions, reported in US media over the weekend, that Moscow had sought to bolster the Republican’s White House campaign with the release of hacked Democratic party documents. “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!” Trump said in a tweet.
“Unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”
Trump earlier called the findings “ridiculous” and dismissed the news as partisan effort by Democrats to refight the election they lost.
But leading senators from both parties said there were serious indications Russia had sought to undermine the US democratic system, and called for a bipartisan probe.
Republican senator John McCain said on CBS television yesterday that there was “no doubt” about the hacking.
“It’s another form of warfare and the entire issue is going to be examined by the armed services committee because it’s a threat to our national security,” he said.
McCain said the investigation should stretch across armed services, intelligence and foreign relations committees in Congress, aiming to get a full picture of the story.
Speaking later, Mitch McConnell, the powerful senate majority leader, appeared to dampen that plan, saying the issue should be handled by the senate intelligence committee, whose leader Richard Burr has been silent on the issue since the reports first appeared on Friday.
But McConnell spoke out strongly against any foreign interference, saying: “Obviously any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts.”
“The Russians are not our friends,” he said.
US intelligence had previously linked Russia to leaks of damaging e-mail from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign but saw it as a broad bid to undermine confidence in the US political process.
On Friday, however, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has since concluded that the aim of the cyber intrusions was to help Trump win.
The report came on the heels of President Barack Obama’s order to review all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle amid growing calls from Congress for more information on the extent of Russian interference.
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