Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta called President Trump “the first draft dodger in the war” against Russian meddling in the American electoral process.
Podesta said on CBS’ “Face The Nation” Trump’s inability to say anything negative about Russia or promise to stop their meddling in the 2018 elections — an inevitability, according to the intelligence community — is harmful to the nation.
“This active effort by Russians could have tilted the election in Donald Trump’s favor. I think what the real issue is, how he’s reacted to it,” he said. “In that context if this is information warfare then I think he’s the first draft dodger in the war.”
“He has done nothing but tried to undermine the [special counsel Robert] Mueller investigation. He hasn’t implemented the sanctions that were passed by Congress that he signed in reaction to the activities in the 2016 election. We understand he’s ordered no effort to try to get the intelligence community together to try to prevent further activities in the 2018 election.”
Podesta is particularly sensitive on the topic of Russia meddling in the 2016 election. Not only was his candidate defeated by Trump and the target of a negative campaign by Russia, but Podesta’s emails were hacked and released publicly by WikiLeaks. The intelligence community has widely blamed Russia for the hack.
“This was an act of information warfare against the United States, against our democracy. I think it’s active measures, but I think the real victims are the American people because there was direct interference with our democratic institutions,” he said.
