Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin played a role in cyberattacks aimed at interfering in the U.S. presidential election.
“I understand the answer is clearly yes,” Reid told reporters. “His having been the head of the KGB, does that surprise you? And did it surprise anyone today when he denied it?”
On Wednesday NBC reported that U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Putin was personally involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails, as well as other cyberassaults. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not embraced the conclusion, nor has it disputed it.
Reid, who will be leaving Congress at the end of the year, said the CIA’s conclusion that the Russian government is responsible for the hacking is “out in the open now” and reiterated his call for FBI Director James Comey to resign over his failure to investigate the cyberattacks and for his decision to send a letter to Congress essentially reopening the agency’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just days before the election.
The Kremlin on Thursday denied the NBC report that Putin personally directed how the hacked data from U.S. Democrats during the presidential campaign.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the accusation as “laughable nonsense,” according the Associated Press.
Trump also continued to question U.S. intelligence findings pointing to Russia as the hacking culprit.
Earlier Thursday, Trump tweeted: “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?”
