Russia and Putin · 2016 campaign · № 25
Cited Julian Assange against U.S. intelligence: 'Also said Russians did not give him the info!'
“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!”
- Said
- , Twitter (@realDonaldTrump)
- Subject
- Assange and the DNC hack
- Type
- Intelligence and security
- Topic
- Elections
- Era
- 2016 campaign
What happened
The WikiLeaks founder's interview with Sean Hannity had aired on Fox News the previous evening. The night before, Trump had tweeted that his intelligence briefing on 'so-called "Russian hacking"' had been 'delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!'; intelligence agency chiefs said the meeting had never been scheduled before Friday. Sen. Lindsey Graham responded: 'In Julian Assange's world, we're the bad guys.' On January 5 Trump tweeted that he was not 'in Agreement with Julian Assange' and that 'I simply state what he states'. The declassified assessment released on January 6 said the intelligence community assessed 'with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks'. Trump's statement after his briefing that day did not address who was responsible, saying that 'Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure' and that 'there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election'.