President-elect Donald Trump said he has a “constructive meeting and conversation” with officials in the intelligence community Friday. Trump, who has recently cast doubts publicly about intelligence reports that Russian-supported cyber-attacks tried to influence last November’s presidential election, said in a statement released shortly after his meeting that foreign governments and outside groups have tried to compromise American political, private, and governmental networks.
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said. “There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful.”
Trump has recently denied that Russia was involved in the DNC hack, though the president-elect does not dispute the intelligence community’s findings in his Friday statement. Some Democrats and media coverage of the cyber attack of the DNC have suggested the election itself was hacked by the Russians or their clients—something the intelligence community has never claimed.
Trump himself stated on Twitter earlier this week that Friday’s briefing had been “delayed” (which intelligence sources have denied) in order to give the intelligence community “more time” to “build a case” about Russia’s involvement in hacking. But in his Friday statement, the Republican president-elect said he has “tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation.”
The intelligence officials conducting the briefing were James Clapper, the director of national intelligence; John Brennan, the CIA director; and James Comey, the FBI director. Trump was joined in the briefing by several advisers and members of his incoming administration, including Vice President-elect Mike Pence, incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, Flynn’s deputy K.T. McFarland, Homeland Security secretary nominee Thomas Bossert, and CIA director nominee Mike Pompeo.
Update: The office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its declassified report on the hacking of the DNC and Russian interference in the election. Here’s an excerpt from the report’s key findings:
