Intelligence leaders ‘resolute’ on interference; President-elect embraces Assange support
Leaders of the US intelligence community forcefully rejected Donald Trump’s dismissal of their findings that Russia interfered in the presidential election, putting the country’s top spies on a collision course with the president-elect two weeks before his inauguration.
James Clapper, director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee hearing yesterday that US intelligence agencies were more “resolute” in their conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered pre-election hacks of Democratic party servers than they had been in October when they first indicated Russian involvement.
Senator John McCain, the armed services committee’s Republican chairman, joined Mr Clapper and two other leading US intelligence leaders in blaming the Kremlin for the pre-election hacks, which he described as an “unprecedented attack on our democracy”.
He added: “Every American should be alarmed by Russia’s attack on our nation.” Mr McCain called for a new US strategy to deter cyber attacks.
Mr Trump has scoffed at the intelligence finding that the Russian government directed last year’s hack on Democratic Party computers and this week embraced WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange’s statement that they could have been carried out by a “14-year-old”, The president-elect’s stance has left him at odds with senior members of his party, including Mr McCain.
“I simply state what [Mr Assange] states, it is for the people to make up their own minds as to the truth,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday.
The release of internal Democratic emails by WikiLeaks, the transparency group, hamstrung Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign in its final weeks.
Mr Clapper and Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, suggested Mr Trump was making a mistake listening to Mr Assange. Mr Clapper said earlier WikiLeaks’ disclosures of classified government documents had led to American deaths.
Alluding to Mr Trump’s recent jibes, Mr Clapper, a 53-year veteran of the intelligence community who is leaving government this month, said there was a difference between “scepticism and disparagement”.
Barack Obama, the outgoing president, has ordered a review of intelligence on the Russian campaign, to be released in unclassified form next week. Mr Clapper said it would describe multiple motives behind the hacks. He added they were one element in a campaign that included use of traditional propaganda, disinformation and “fake news”.
“The Russians have a long history of interfering in elections – theirs and other people’s,” Mr Clapper said.
Mr Trump’s dismissal of the intelligence findings risks damaging morale among those working for agencies such as the CIA and NSA, the officials said. Adm Rogers added: “I don’t want a situation where our workforce decides to walk because that’s just not a good place for us to be.”
