Trump: 'Very hard to determine' who was behind DNC hacks
President-elect Trump on Monday downplayed claims that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee and emails from top Hillary Clinton officials, in an apparent effort to cast doubt on reports from the intelligence community that Russia tried to swing the election in his favor.
Despite a seeming consensus on Russia being responsible for the release of DNC and Clinton campaign emails in the intelligence community, Trump tweeted that no one really knows who is responsible.
"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 tweeted.
It was widely reported before the election that the intelligence community believed Russia was responsible for the hacks. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the Department of Homeland Security released a statement in early October blaming Russia for the hacks.abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.
However, Trump has refused to bend on his skepticism that the Kremlin attempted to influence the election, and said he thinks it's just sour grapes from Democrats after they failed to keep the White House.
"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 tweeted.
While many lawmakers took to the airwaves to call for congressional investigations into the hacking on Monday, the message from Trump's camp was that the reports on hacking are attempts by Democrats to delegitimize his election.
While many lawmakers took to the airwaves to call for congressional investigations into the hacking on Monday, the message from Trump's camp was that the reports on hacking are attempts by Democrats to delegitimize his election.
On CBS, Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump aide, said the president-elect doesn't trust "off the record, unsourced quotes."
"People are trying to conflate that now to revisit the election results," Conway said. "We're just surrounded by election deniers."
For Conway, the reports of hacking coming from the Central Intelligence Agency during the weekend are simply attacks on Trump's win. She said he has respect for the intelligence community, but Trump and his supporters will not let them attack his victory.
"We're not going to accept that, we're not going to allow people to insult or demean the president-elect," she said.
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