After security meeting, Trump admits possibility of Russian hacking

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump acknowledged the possibility on Friday that Russia had hacked a variety of U.S. targets, including the Democratic National Committee, after an almost two-hour meeting with the nation's top intelligence officials.

Trump asserted the hacking had no effect on the outcome of the election.

In a statement issued after the president-elect was briefed by senior U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, Trump said: "While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyberinfrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines."

For months, Trump had publicly resisted any suggestion that Russia was involved in cyberattacks during the 2016 presidential election and had mocked the intelligence agencies behind assessments on Russian hacking. After Friday's briefing, he said he has "tremendous respect" for the people who work for U.S. spy agencies.

But just hours before, the president-elect had attributed claims of Russian hacking to embarrassed election-year rivals, calling the storm surrounding the cyberattacks a political witch hunt being carried out by his adversaries, who he said were embarrassed by their loss to him in the election last year.

[Declassified report says Putin 'ordered' effort to undermine faith in US election]

Trump spoke to The New York Times by telephone three hours before he was set to be briefed by the nation's top intelligence and law enforcement officials about the Russian hacking of U.S. political institutions. In the conversation, he repeatedly criticized the intense focus on Russia.

"China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names," he said, referring to the breach of computers at the Office of Personnel Management in late 2014 and early 2015. "How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt."

In congressional testimony Thursday, intelligence officials rejected Trump's longstanding skepticism about Russia's cyberactivities and told lawmakers they had unanimously concluded that the Russian government used hacks and leaks of information to influence the U.S. election.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said at the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Trump's comments were "disparaging" and bad for morale at the nation's spy agencies. He said that "our assessment now is even more resolute" about the Russian hacking.

In Friday's interview, Trump also confronted questions about whether taxpayer funds should be used to begin construction of his promised wall along the southern border. He said doing so would allow construction to begin quickly, but insisted that he would negotiate with Mexico to reimburse the United States for those costs.

On the issue of Russia's cyberactivities, Trump noted that there have been prior successful hackings of the White House and Congress, suggesting it was unfair that those attacks on U.S. institutions have not received the attention that the Russian ones have. But none of the information from those intrusions was made public as it was in the case of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

"With all that being said, I don't want countries to be hacking our country," Trump said. "They've hacked the White House. They've hacked Congress. We're like the hacking capital of the world."

Trump, who has consistently expressed doubts about the evidence of Russian hacking during the election, did so again Friday. Asked why he thought there was so much attention being given to the Russian cyberattacks, the president-elect said the motivation was political.

"They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan," Trump said during an eight-minute phone conversation. "They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it's a witch hunt. They just focus on this." (In fact, Trump won more counties than any Republican presidential candidate since Reagan, according to a PolitiFact analysis citing data from the Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.)

The president-elect also noted the news this week, first reported by BuzzFeed News, that the DNC had refused to give the FBI access to its computer servers after it was hacked.

"The DNC wouldn't let them see the servers," Trump said. "How can you be sure about hacking when you can't even get to the servers?" The DNC has previously said the law enforcement agency had not asked to examine the computers.

[Analysis: Russian intervention in U.S. election was no one-off]

A senior law enforcement official said the FBI had repeatedly emphasized to the DNC the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data. The FBI was rebuffed, and had to rely upon a third party — a computer security firm brought in by the DNC — for information.

Trump also said that the hacking of emails from the DNC and top campaign officials for Clinton had revealed that she received advance notice of debate questions and "many many other things that were horrible."

"How come nobody complains about that?" Trump said, referring to a tip that a CNN commentator and Clinton supporter, Donna Brazile, gave to Podesta ahead of a Democratic Party presidential debate in Flint, Michigan.

Trump said he was looking forward to his meeting Friday afternoon about the hacking with Clapper; James B. Comey, the FBI director; and other intelligence officials. He said that Clapper "wrote me a beautiful letter a few weeks ago wishing me the best."

But he said that "a lot of mistakes were made" by the intelligence community in the past, noting in particular the attacks on the World Trade Center and saying that "weapons of mass destruction was one of the great mistakes of all time."

In a later post on Twitter, Trump also expressed his frustration that details about an intelligence report on the Russia hacking were reported by news organizations late Thursday afternoon. The Washington Post, NBC and other organizations quoted unnamed officials who said the report documented intercepts showing Russian officials celebrating Trump's election victory. "I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it," Trump said in his Twitter post.

In the earlier interview, the president-elect said that he was eager to work with the intelligence community as president and he praised the people he selected to lead the intelligence agencies, in particular Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who is his pick to lead the CIA.

He said that Pompeo was "first in his class" at West Point.

"We have great people going into those slots," Trump said in the interview. "I expect to have a very, very good relationship with them."

—

Adam Goldman contributed reporting from Washington.