Rep. Adam Schiff says he wholeheartedly believes Russia was behind the recent cyber espionage attack on the United States.
“Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think there’s any question that it was Russia,” Schiff, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC on Sunday.
Trump administration officials back that sentiment, saying Russia was likely behind the recent hack, despite President Trump’s downplaying of the country’s threat.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he was fully briefed on the attack and “everything is well under control.” The president added that he believes it could be China behind the threat, and the news media was just too “petrified” to affirm that notion.
The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020
Schiff, a frequent critic of Trump who often paints the president as being soft on Russia, condemned Trump’s assertions of the attack.
“It just uniformly destructive and deceitful and injurious … to our national security,” the California Democrat said.
SolarWinds, a third-party software contractor, announced on Dec. 13 that its systems had been compromised by hackers who managed to penetrate the company’s Orion software updates and distribute malware to the computers of its customers.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strong ally of the president within the administration, broke away from Trump’s claim about China, telling radio talk show host Mark Levin Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the attack.
“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Pompeo said.
