Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday he believes Russian cyberattacks “invaded the space of our election” and had a “profound impact.”
“I think that all the cyberattacks that are taking place — but particularly the Russian one — had a profound impact our system, on our political process,” Kerry said while appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.
“It invaded the space of our election,” Kerry told Mitchell. “The releasing on a regular basis of one party’s stolen emails had an impact and I think that other things also had an impact.”
Thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, were released during the presidential campaign.
U.S. intelligence officials have told lawmakers they believe Russian hackers gained access to the accounts and provided the emails to WikiLeaks to hurt Clinton.
Earlier Wednesday, Kerry delivered a lengthy speech at the State Department, ripping into Israel’s government and criticizing its Jewish settlement expansion.
Kerry declined to address President-elect Trump’s criticism of the administration’s stance on Israel.
In several tweets Wednesday before the speech, Trump wrote: “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but … not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”
“I’ve learned through the years there’s a distinction between comments made pre-governing and then what you see and what you decide to do when you are governing,” Kerry said. “So let’s wait and see where this goes.”
Kerry said he recently had a “good conversation” with Trump’s appointee to lead the State Department, Rex Tillerson.
“We agreed to try to meet somewhere down the road here to share thoughts,” he said.
