White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Intelligence Community wasn’t “particularly subtle” in its October assessment of which Russian actors could have authorized the country’s hacking of U.S. election activity this year, hinting that Vladimir Putin must have somehow been involved.

The IC announced that it was “confident” the Russian government was responsible for compromising the emails of Democratic entities and officials, and that the “scope and sensitivity” of the efforts indicated the involvement of the highest-ranking members inside the Kremlin. “[O]nly Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” read the statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence.