President-elect Trump said Friday his opponents are out to get him by focusing on Russia’s hacking of top Democrats’ emails prior to his election victory in November.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said Democrats and other political opponents are embarrassed that he won and are trying to delegitimize him by focusing on the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
“They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan,” Trump said. “They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this.”
Trump is expected to meet with top American intelligence officials on Friday to discuss the hacking. He has categorically denied Russian involvement in the hacks, questioning whether anyone can know who is responsible.
Trump said the Russian hacks are being touted far more than other hacking incidents, leading him to believe there’s political motivation behind the leaks.
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” he said. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
Trump added that the DNC wouldn’t allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to have direct access to its computers, so he believes it’s impossible to tell who actually hacked their network.
“The D.N.C. wouldn’t let them see the servers,” Mr. Trump said. “How can you be sure about hacking when you can’t even get to the servers?”
