President-elect Donald Trump has been tweeting up a storm, suggesting the “delay” in the intelligence briefing on Russian hacking was “very strange” and even seeming to back WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s version of the hacking over that of what US intelligence agencies said with “100 percent” certainty happened.
Donald Trump Trump had previously claimed during a New Year’s Eve party that he knew “things that other people don’t know” about the Russian hacking, adding that he would reveal new details about the alleged Russian hacking on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Unnamed, top intelligence officials pushed back after Trump’s tweet, telling CNN that even President Obama hasn’t received the full Russian hacking report since the report isn’t completed yet, and the scheduled meeting was to take place on Friday. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was reportedly not scheduled to be in New York City to see Trump yesterday or today, so he was “perplexed about the ‘delay’ Trump claimed was taking place.”
Hallie Jackson But Trump was on a roll after suggesting intelligence agencies were perhaps still trying to build a case and started quoting Julian Assange. This was one of the most high-profile nods to Assange; it seems like most high-ranking US officials consider WikiLeaks to be some sort of Satan’s spawn.
Donald Trump Apparently, Trump was following the Assange interview on Fox News. During the interview, Assange told Sean Hannity that the Russians were not the source of John Podesta’s / DNC emails that were published by WikiLeaks. “Our source is not the Russian government,” Assange again stated. “It is not state parties.”
Assange hammered on dishonest media coverage and Trump echoed that sentiment.
Donald Trump The president-elect also took the opportunity to bash the Democratic National Committee for failing at cyber security.
Donald Trump Yet a plethora of three-letter US agencies as well as the Obama Administration are confident the Russians are to blame for interfering with the election; Obama came out with sanctions and kicked 35 diplomats and their families out of the US. It remains to be seen what Trump will say after he is briefed on the full Russian hacking report.
As for Trump’s previous suggestion to write down “very important” information and have it “delivered by courier,” since “no computer is safe,” perhaps someone can educate him about encryption. Crypto is not the devil, it’s the solution. If Trump is going to take a stand against US Intelligence, then he should consider championing encryption.