Donald Trump’s transition team appeared to take a swipe at the Central Intelligence Agency Friday and call the spy agency “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
Trump’s team was responding to a Washington Post article published online Friday night that said the intelligence community has reached a “consensus” that Russia intervened in the presidential election to help Trump win, not just try and sow chaos in the process.
The Post cited officials briefed on a secret CIA assessment. NBC News has not confirmed the story, but has reported that Russians allegedly used hacking groups to provide material to WikiLeaks at the behest and direction of the Russian government.
“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s representatives said in a statement attributed to the transition team. “The election ended a long time ago … It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.'”
The New York Times also reported that U.S. intelligence officials concluded with “high confidence” Russia was trying to help Trump win. The newspaper also reported that intelligence officials believe Russia also hacked the Republican National Committee, but did not release any stolen information.
The Trump team statement did not call out the CIA or any other agency by name, but was titled “transition statement on claims of foreign interference in U.S. elections” and it was released Friday after the Post report was published.
President Barack Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver to him a dossier of the evidence that the Russian government used cyber-attacks and other means to intervene in the 2016 election, a senior administration official told NBC News.
The information may be made public, the official said.
Russia has denied being behind the cyber-attacks on Democratic Party institutions. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied his organization was being used by the Russian government.
The Post reported that the CIA assessment was shared with key senators last week during a private briefing on Capitol Hill.
A senior U.S. official who was not named told the newspaper: “It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”
The U.S. government in October said that all 17 intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind the cyber-attacks before the election, and that the goal was “to interfere with the U.S. election process.”
Trump has said he doesn’t believe the assessment and doesn’t believe the Russian government interfered in the election, most recently in the current issue of Time magazine. U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News they were stunned by the pronouncement.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/buzz-aldrin-leaves-new-zealand-hospital-after-south-pole-scare-n693936
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