Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that Russia had any involvement with the release of data stolen in hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said in a Friday interview with Bloomberg. “You know how many hackers there are today, and they act so delicately and precisely, they can leave their mark at the necessary time and place, or not their own mark.
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“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin added. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.”
Information leaked thus far has included 20,000 emails from the DNC and an assortment of files from the DCCC. Hackers present in the system included a group known as Cozy Bear, linked in the past to the Russian Federal Security Service, and Fancy Bear, linked to Russian military intelligence agency GRU.
Files have been leaked publicly by Guccifer 2.0, who claims to be a Romanian hacker with no ties to the Russian government. The Obama administration has not blamed Russia for the hacking, though congressional Democrats have insisted the country should be viewed as responsible. Donald Trump also jokingly called on Russia to continue hacking Hillary Clinton’s files.
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Putin, who has served as president or prime minister of Russia for the past 16 years, is facing his own campaign for re-election in 18 months. He insisted that Russia had never engaged in hacking to influence an election, and that the data released hasn’t been interesting.
“On a state level, Russia has never done this. To be honest, I couldn’t even imagine this sort of information is interesting to American society, specifically that the campaign headquarters worked in favor of one of the candidates, in this case Mrs. Clinton, rather than equally for all of the Democratic party candidates,” Putin said.
“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?” Putin added. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.”
Putin also said it doesn’t matter who Americans elect president, as long as they enjoy the people’s trust.
“I would like to work with the person who can make responsible decisions and implement any agreements that we reach,” he said. “Their last name doesn’t matter. Of course it’s necessary for that person to enjoy the trust of the American people so that they won’t just have the desire but the political will to fulfill all those agreements.”
