Trump refuses to say he believes Russia was solely responsible for U.S. election interference

[DonViejo]

Last edited Thu Jul 6, 2017, 10:47 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: The Washington Post



By Abby Phillip July 6 at 5:47 AM

WARSAW — President Trump refused Thursday to say definitively that he believes Russia was responsible for interference in the 2016 election.

"I think it could very well have been Russia but I think it could well have been other countries, I won’t be specific," Trump said at a news conference in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda. "I think a lot of people interfere. I think it’s been happening for a long time."

The U.S. intelligence community has said publicly that it believes Russia was responsible for efforts to meddle in the election and that the operation was directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Nobody really knows," Trump added. "Nobody really knows for sure.”

Trump's comments come just one day before he is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Putin during a G-20 summit in Germany, and questions remain about whether he will confront Russia over the issue.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/06/trump-refuses-to-say-definitively-russia-interfered-in-2016-election/

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Trump Attacks U.S. Spies, Says ‘Other People’ Could’ve Hacked 2016

Donald Trump kicked off his European tour ranting about President Obama, NBC, CNN, and other actors who may have hacked the U.S. election besides Russia.

OLIVIA MESSER
07.06.17 7:34 AM ET

President Trump began his tour of Eastern Europe on Thursday with a rant that cast U.S. intelligence agencies as untrustworthy in their assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election. Trump even deflected blame away from Moscow for election-related hacking.

“I think it was Russia, and I think it could’ve been other people and other countries,” Trump said. “Nobody really knows for sure. A lot of people interfere. It’s been happening for a long time.”

Trump appeared with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw en route to the G-20 summit, where the commander in chief is set to have his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Independent cybersecurity firms, relying on a host of technical indicators, began fingering the Russian government for the hack of the Democratic National Committee in the summer of 2016. Putin has even admitted that “patriotic” Russian hackers may have been behind the breach.

Speaking in Warsaw, Trump said he doubted how many U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the Kremlin's effort in a January report.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-attacks-u-s-spies-says-other-people-could-have-hacked-2016

[Botany]

1. Nobody really knows," Trump added. "Nobody really knows for sure.

Only 17 different Federal Agencies agree that Russia hacked our
elections.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencies-20170112-story.html

1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence

2.Central Intelligence Agency

3. National Security Agency

4. Defense Intelligence Agency

5. Federal Bureau of Investigation

6. Department of State – Bureau of Intelligence and Research

7. Department of Homeland Security – Office of Intelligence and Analysis

8. Drug Enforcement Administration – Office of National Security Intelligence

9. Department of the Treasury – Office of Intelligence and Analysis

10. Department of Energy – Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

11. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

12. National Reconnaissance Office

13. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

14. Army Military Intelligence

15. Office of Naval Intelligence

16. Marine Corps Intelligence

17. Coast Guard Intelligence

[turbinetree]

8. You missed No's 18

18. 65 million people that voted against this ass**** and we are intelligent enough to see and read the facts

[sprinkleeninow]

21. It very well could've been russia. It very well could've been someone else.

No one knows. No one really really knows. Not really knows. Not really. No one. Who knows? Not really anyone. It could've been who knows. Anyone really.

SHADDAPP!

Some 'One' please help us. Now.

[turbinetree]

22. That's too funny

I swear he chases imaginary rabbits

[sprinkleeninow]

30. I mock. Schmock. Schmock.

I do my own comedy relief so I stay in my gourd.
So as not to go offa the rails. 😤

Yours truly,
'Wild Jack the Democratic Donkey"
(in lieu of DU's bronco kicking donkeys that I saved but can't transfer to a post because Ima tech challenged)

[TomVilmer]

9. This assessment was made by just four intelligence agencies...

... but certainly the most important ones, since it was CIA, FBI, NSA and the Director of National Intelligence:

New York Times - Corrections June 29, 2017:
"A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."

[Botany]

11. My link was to a L.A. Times article

[Kathy M]

10. If it was 17 agencies why would NYT have this correction .....

"Correction: June 29, 2017

A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community. "

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/us/politics/trumps-deflections-and-denials-on-russia-frustrate-even-his-allies.html

[Botany]

12. My link was to a L.A. Times article

[hamsterjill]

13. Why do we have people trying to minimize Trump's ignorance?

Four agencies or seventeen, I don't care. He's deflecting from the very OBVIOUS Russian involvement. The focus should be on WHY he is deflecting. And I think we all know why!

[Botany]

14. My guess is that people are .....

....

[Kathy M]

16. No , speakng for myself when I read something or hear something on news channels or papers

I would hope it is correct and if it is not a correction as soon as possible .

[Kathy M]

15. OK ... then why was this said during final debate between Hillary and Trump

"Clinton responded by asking Trump if he really doesn’t believe the 17 federal intelligence agencies that have said Russia is behind the cyberattack.

"We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election," Clinton said. "I find that deeply disturbing."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/19/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-blames-russia-putin-wikileaks-rele/

a lot of news organizations repeated the 17 agencies statement , have heard it many times on cable news . I would not hit yourself on the head since statement started last fall

[TomVilmer]

18. To keep repeating such quite small mistakes...

... makes it all too easy to cast doubt upon the full story, which Trump just grabbed and did.

[Kathy M]

20. I do not see it as casting doubt ...... I would have preferred if they just listed out the

agencies involved instead of starting with the 17 agency line . I realize Clapper speaks /spoke for all of the agencies , but from correction not all agreed . I prefer the truth , but also know politics and truth does not always fit together .

[emulatorloo]

27. The truth is Russia interfered in our election. And the IC has evidence, no matter how many

falsehoods and red herrings Trump chooses to deploy.

[emulatorloo]

28. Politifact rates Clinton's statement as True. You're contradicting the link you gave.

They also updated the page on June 6, 2016:

"Editor's note: We've attached an update to this fact-check below in response to reader queries after subsequent testimony by James Clapper. The original fact-check and rating remain unchanged."

They stick by the TRUE rating because what she said was true.

See the section entitled:

"Update, June 6, 2017: Clapper's May testimony was about a newer report, not October assessment"

[TomVilmer]

34. Thanks for checking my links!

The updated PolitiFact link now tell that: "The October statement, on the other hand, said 'The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident' in its assessment. As we noted in the article, the 17 separate agencies did not independently come to this conclusion, but as the head of the intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence speaks on behalf of the group."

As I read this, PolitiFact should have downgraded to "Mostly True". The Office of the Director of National Intelligence speaks on behalf of the group, but by this it is not claimed that everybody in this group clearly stands by the full USIC. Just that they all supported to the evidence, which led to the Director's conclusion - but inside the USIC assessment there are dissenting opinions from some of those. Best summary I now can find for what is up and down on these USIC-statements are this WP-blog.

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident in its assessment" is a different statement than the quite logical
misunderstanding from this, that all 17 separate agencies totally agree in the USIC assessment. It is a complicated world...

[emulatorloo]

37. Tom, I really don't get your and Kathy's point. I think politifact is correct on the True Rating.

Seems y'all are caught up in word parsing and nitpicking.

Agencies had Intel on Russian interference and Trump was denying it. I'm glad he was confronted with that.

[hughee99]

25. If you link to an article written BEFORE the correction, the correction doesn't count. nt

[Thinkingabout]

2. It will probably take as long or longer for him to accept Russian interference than it took him to

admit President Obama was born in the USA and besides this his mother was a citizen therefore he was a natural born citizen. This man's mind works in mysterious ways. Maybe brain cell disconnect.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Drumpf's own mother and grandfather were off the boat. nt

[Thinkingabout]

32. Plus two foreign born wives, Melania probably did not get her citizenship legally.

He is a son of immigrants also.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. Yeah, Melania was working here illegally too when she first arrived.

Which leads to a story I saw on DU about the Drumpf model agency undergoing a sudden exodus of models. Hmmmm... I wonder why???!!!1111!

[greymattermom]

3. But this is important

he's admitting that the election was stolen, right?

[karynnj]

7. He certainly adds an asterisk to his win, but by saying many countries may have interfered

he opens the question of multiple countries possibly with some helping Clinton.

As to "stolen", I do not think he went that far. If no voting records, voting rolls or votes, were changed, he might claim that means the election was not stolen. As to lies being spread - even if it was done more effectively - that has happened all the way back to Jefferson and Adams. We may have lost more recent elections for President and Congress due to lies from the Koch Brothers, the SBVT, and other right wing PACs. However, a hostile foreign country spreading lies is even more ominous. It might be that the Koch Brothers et al set the stage where those smears were not seen as more outrageous than what our native born RW did.

The fact that Russia tried to distort our election is the main issue, even if they failed to change the results, it is absolutely important to react and prevent it happening in the future. The sad thing is that without everything related to the email problem including Comey's letters, this election would probably not have been anywhere near close enough for Trump to win through smears.

From the polling data, the one thing that can be said is that the Comey letter very likely had an effect that lowered Clinton from being comfortably ahead to within about 3 percent nationally. Note that 3% nationally was what she won by. It may very well be that the poorly handled email issue - including the investigations is what took HRC from a sure winner to losing. Comey said he was nauseated that he might have swung the election - and he should have been. However, Bill Clinton does deserve part of the blame because his private visit with Lynch led to Lynch saying she would accept what the FBI said and to Lynch saying there were no indictable charges and that he would tell Congress if anything else came up.



No one can prove anything from a path not taken, but I suspect that had Clinton left the work emails with the State Department, they would have given the Congress and media those emails related to the requests and there would have been no email scandal - and benghazi would have concluded about 2 years earlier ... though the far right will speak of it forever. Had this been the case, HRC's numbers on honesty and trustworthiness would not have cratered. If she also did NOT give the paid speeches and had followed the memo she and Obama signed on preventing any conflict of interest between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, the Republicans would have NOTHING other than stuff that preceded 2008 to attack Clinton with - which would sound pretty old.

Needless to say, had a small number of votes been different, Clinton would have won.

[chowder66]

4. He's playing games as usual and either he's right and knows something about other countries

that his campaign employed to hack or interfere or he's reversing his words meaning 'Everybody really knows'.....'Everybody really knows for sure'. He's republican, they say the opposite of what they mean.

[KRISITNA]

5. Putin has a video of me showering gold on russian prostitutes, but.... nobody "REALLY" knows.

[Bradical79]

17. He's right

Lots of Republicans responsible too. Technically little Donny isn't Russian either.

[Seasider]

19. Of course he keeps using the Iraq WMD example

to make his case that the intelligence community could be wrong. It's sad that we have a President who is more willing to believe what he sees on Fox News.

[Blue_Tires]

23. FWIW, this is also Glenn Greenwald's party line

[emulatorloo]

26. Yep. Trump's talking points could have been written by the Ivancept.

[Grammy23]

24. It still boggles my mind when he says things like,"Do we even have 17 intelligence agencies?"

As if he is still in the dark about such matters. So .....naturally, he had to "look into it" and sure enough....."there are, like 3 or 4." Sometimes I just want to smack him up side of his punkin' head. Hard.

[Doug the Dem]

29. Of Course

[cisco man]

31. Traitor!!!

The drivel & shit spewing from his pie hole is so fucking treasonous I just can't believe it. He's such a total embarrassment to this country & it's cringeworthy every damn time he speaks publicly. Arggggghhhhh!!!!

[madville]

33. I think his statement is correct

Of course it wasn't solely Russia interfering with the election, it would be ridiculous to think so. Other countries surely meddled and/or attempted cyber espionage, I would expect countries like China, Israel, North Korea, etc to all have entities working behind the scenes to interfere with many different elections. I would bet there were individuals working outside the umbrella of Russia interfering as well, that's all just common sense.

Tell us something new Mr. President.

[Hieronymus]

36. Will we ever know what Putin holds over Trump?

We do know that Putin is smart and Trump is not.

[Sunlei]

38. That's because TRUMP KNOWS "his" Republican party worked (colluded) with Russia.