President-elect Trump chastised Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and Democrats for being careless with their cybersecurity after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed a 14-year-old could have hacked their email systems.
“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta,'” Trump tweeted. “Why was the DNC so careless? Also said it wasn’t the Russians who gave info!”
Julian Assange said “a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta” – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
While the intelligence community uniformly believes Russia is responsible for the hacking into the Democratic National Committee and Podesta’s email, Trump has maintained no one knows who is actually responsible. He has floated the idea of a teenager in a basement possibly being responsible for the hacks.
On Tuesday night, Assange told Fox News he agreed with Trump’s assessment and Russia didn’t give WikiLeaks the information that they posted. “We can say and we have said repeatedly: our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,” Assange said. Trump spread that information Wednesday.
Trump initially tweeted the same message but spelled Assange’s name wrong, so the tweet was deleted and then reposted.
Later on Wednesday morning, Trump agreed with Assange’s negative view of the American media. He said the media is “more dishonest than anyone knows.”
He continued to criticize Democrats for being hacked, stating they din’t have the same protections at the Republican National Committee and never faced up to the information contained in the emails.
Somebody hacked the DNC but why did they not have “hacking defense” like the RNC has and why have they not responded to the terrible……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
things they did and said (like giving the questions to the debate to H). A total double standard! Media, as usual, gave them a pass.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
“Somebody hacked the DNC but why did they not have ‘hacking defense’ like the RNC has and why have they not responded to the terrible…… things they did and said (like giving the questions to the debate to H). A total double standard! Media, as usual, gave them a pass,” Trump said in two tweets.
“@FoxNews: Julian Assange on U.S. media coverage: “It’s very dishonest.” #Hannity pic.twitter.com/ADcPRQifH9” More dishonest than anyone knows
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Trump is one of the few major national political figures to outright deny Russia had any role in the hacks that led up to the November election.
On Tuesday night, he said an intelligence briefing his advisers said was scheduled for that day was canceled and moved to Friday. “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case,” he tweeted.
Putting quote marks around words when not quoting someone is generally seen as a way of sarcastically questioning the meaning of those words. Many saw that as a jab at the intelligence community.
Reports indicated that intelligence briefing on Russian hacking has always been scheduled for Friday.
