Sen. John McCain believes Friday’s intelligence report “made a strong case” that the Russians “intended to affect the outcome of this election,” he told NBC News’ Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
“And if they were able to succeed doing that, then you destroy democracies. Because you destroy the fundamental which is free and fair election,” said the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The declassified intelligence report showed that Russia had hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s email accounts in order to interfere in the 2016 elections by specifically seeking to “denigrate” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and boost her rival Donald Trump.
One day before the release of the report, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and Admiral Mike Rogers who heads the National Security Agency, briefed the Armed Services Committee on what the intelligence community had found regarding the Russian cyber attacks, as well as other clandestine activities targeting the election.
“I believe our intelligence leaders,” said McCain, explaining that in his opinion General Clapper and Admiral Rogers “are credible people and well respected.”
With respect to President-elect Trump’s dismissive tone regarding the credibility of Clapper, McCain said: “yes, intelligence authorities have made mistakes in the past and have been wrong in the past. But what they’re saying is there’s a long history of Russian attempts to affect the outcome of our election. And not just by use of hacking and cyberattacks, but a broad variety of ways. And they are credible people.”
Clapper had been involved in the intelligence gathering that went into the decision to go into Iraq based on the premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. No weapons were ever found.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who serves on the Armed Services Committee, told Todd that he had “no doubt” that the Russians were seeking to undermine the election.
“No doubt in my mind that Russians interfered, that John Podesta’s emails were hacked by the Russians, not some 14-year-old kid or 300-pound guy, and that the DNC was compromised by the Russians,” Graham said. “And it seems pretty clear to me that WikiLeaks got it from the Russians. It didn’t affect the outcome, but they tried to interfere in our election.”
Podesta, the former chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton, served as campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks had published volumes of illegally hacked emails from Podesta’s personal email accounts in the months leading up to the November election.
