Trump Falsely Says U.S. Claim of Russian Hacking Came After Election
WASHINGTON — Faced with a surge of Republican calls for investigations into Russia’s efforts to influence the election, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Thursday again refused to accept Moscow’s culpability, asking why the administration had waited “so long to act” if Russia “or some other entity” had carried out cyberattacks.
Mr. Trump’s argument — made on Twitter, his usual forum — came as pressure grew in Congress for him to acknowledge intelligence agencies’ conclusions that Russia was behind the hacking. But aides said that was all but impossible before the Electoral College convenes on Monday to formalize his victory.
A group of Democratic electors, as well as one Republican, called this week for an intelligence briefing on the Russian hacking, raising the specter that votes could be changed.
In his posting on Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested that the government’s conclusions on Russian hacking were a case of sour grapes by President Obama. The president-elect falsely stated that Mr. Obama had waited until after the election to raise the issue.
“Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Mr. Trump asked, although the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., formally blamed Russia on Oct. 7 for cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other organizations.
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In September, meeting privately in China with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Obama not only complained, the White House says, but also warned him of consequences if the Russian activity did not stop.
Among members of his own party, Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the evidence that Russia was the perpetrator was raising growing concerns, with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying he would not vote for Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, unless Mr. Tillerson addressed Russia’s role during his confirmation hearings.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump’s stated doubts about Russia’s involvement will subside after Monday’s Electoral College vote. He and his allies have been concerned that the reports of Russian hacking have been intended to peel away votes from him, although even Democrats have not gone so far as to say the election was illegitimate.
“Right now, certain elements of the media, certain elements of the intelligence community and certain politicians are really doing the work of the Russians — they’re creating this uncertainty over the election,” Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, told reporters at Trump Tower on Thursday after a meeting with Mr. Trump. “People in the intelligence community are using this against the president-elect of the United States, and that is disgraceful.”
But many other Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, have publicly argued that the evidence leads straight to Russia. They have called for a full investigation, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged Mr. Obama on Thursday to complete an administration review quickly.
“I hope he gets it out before he leaves office,” she said on CNN. “And I hope he makes it public.”
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The Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the Russian government deployed computer hackers to help elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s Twitter post was his latest move to accuse the intelligence agencies he will soon control of acting with a political agenda and to dispute the well-documented conclusion that Moscow carried out a meticulously planned series of attacks and releases of information to interfere in the presidential race.
But even as he repeated his doubts, Mr. Trump seized on questions that have emerged about the Obama administration’s response: Why did it take months after the breaches had been discovered for the administration to name Moscow publicly as the culprit? And why did Mr. Obama opt not to openly retaliate, through sanctions or other measures?
White House officials say the warning to Mr. Putin at the September summit meeting in China constituted the primary American response. When the administration decided to go public with its conclusion a month later, it did so in a written statement from the director of national intelligence and the Homeland Security secretary, not in a prominent presidential appearance. And there was no threat of economic sanctions against those responsible.
Officials said they were worried that any larger public response would have raised doubts about the integrity of the election, something that Mr. Trump was already seeking to do in campaign appearances in which he insisted that the election was “rigged.”
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, criticized Mr. Trump on Thursday for questioning whether Russia was behind the attacks, referring to Mr. Trump’s call during the campaign for Moscow to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, a remark his team has since dismissed as a joke.
“I don’t think anybody at the White House thinks it’s funny that an adversary of the United States engaged in malicious cyberactivity to destabilize our democracy — that’s not a joke,” Mr. Earnest said. “It might be time to not attack the intelligence community, but actually be supportive of a thorough, transparent, rigorous, nonpolitical investigation into what exactly happened.”
Asked to respond to Mr. Trump’s Twitter post, Mr. Earnest pointed to the Oct. 7 statement. “It was obvious to everyone who was paying attention, including the gentleman whose thumbs authored that tweet, that the impact of that malicious activity benefited the Trump campaign and hurt the Clinton campaign,” Mr. Earnest said.
While he declined to confirm news reports that Mr. Putin was personally involved in directing the cyberattacks, Mr. Earnest pointedly read part of the Oct. 7 statement that said intelligence officials believed “that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
He said that language “would lead me to conclude that, based on my personal reading and not based on any knowledge that I have that may be classified or otherwise, it was pretty obvious that they were referring to the senior-most government official in Russia.”
Intelligence officials say that while they believe Mr. Putin approved the operations, they have no evidence that he managed them from day to day.
In a conference call with reporters later on Thursday, aides declined to explain Mr. Trump’s position on whether Russia had been responsible for the breaches or to describe what he would do about the issue as president. Jason Miller, a spokesman, said he would let Mr. Trump’s “tweets speak for themselves” and added that those raising questions about the hacking were refusing to come to terms with his victory. “At a certain point you’ve got to realize that the election from last month is going to stand,” Mr. Miller said.
But many Republicans and Democrats have said that regardless of how they feel about the election, Russia’s role must be investigated thoroughly.
Mr. Graham said Thursday that Mr. Tillerson, whose company, Exxon Mobil, has had widespread business dealings in Russia, must acknowledge Moscow’s attempts to interfere in the election. “If he doesn’t believe that,” Mr. Graham told CNN, “I would have a hard time voting for him.”
P.C: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/politics/russia-hack-election-trump-obama.html
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