Kremlin calls USA intel a ‘witch hunt’

Concerning the election, 17 intelligence agencies all agree Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin meddled to favor President-elect Trump.

The intelligence report’s lack of even hints at the kind of evidence collected make it hard to assess the claims, and its weakness gave Russian officials ample opportunity to poke fun.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday that the accusations have “no substance” and that Russian officials were not involved.

“It truly is reminiscent of a witch-hunt”. When she was Secretary of State she accused Putin of having rigged the parliamentary elections in Russian Federation.

“We still don’t know what is in fact and what data those who make such unfounded accusations have”, he added. “We don’t know what information they are actually relying on”.

Friday’s report was a declassified version of a top-secret paper.

The Kremlin broke its silence over the USA intelligence report into hacking today, saying the allegations are “unfounded” and “reminiscent of a witch hunt”.

President Barack Obama says he told Donald Trump he needs to trust the intelligence community.

Defenders of Trump have said that some other group could have done the hacking, that the CIA has often been wrong (including finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), that the intelligence agencies are part of the establishment, that they are part of the Democratic administration (despite their non-politicized organization and their history of conflict with liberals), etc., etc.

The departing president said that he is “concerned” about the degree of USA reporting following the release of the intelligence community assessment.

Obama, in the interview Sunday defended his actions against Russian Federation, which included economic sanctions, but said he is greatly “concerned about … the degree to which we’ve seen a lot of commentary lately where there were, there are Republicans or pundits or cable commentators who seemed to have more confidence in Vladimir Putin than fellow Americans because those fellow Americans were Democrats”. “I’ve cautioned his administration to be careful with Putin, as he remains a bad actor”. “It is becoming a full on witch hunt”, Peskov said, echoing Trump’s claim ahead of the briefing by spy chiefs Friday that the hacking revelations were a “political witch hunt” aimed at discrediting him.

He declined to single out Russian Federation, instead saying it was one of several countries, outside groups and people who were “consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organisations”.

USA intelligence agencies say that since the election, Russian spies have turned to hacking other individuals and organizations, including prominent think-tanks, in what analysts think is an effort to gain insights into future US policies.

“He included everyone but the 400-pound fat guy”, Schiff said on CNN, referring to Mr Trump’s contention in September that such a person may have been behind the attacks on the Democratic National Committee. It appears to me that the DNC (and probably the Clinton campaign) were more anxious about what else the Federal Bureau of Investigation might find if they were given access than to take their lumps from having emails released.

“He’s not denying that entities in Russian Federation were behind this particular campaign”, Mr Priebus added. Yet even after being briefed by the nation’s top intelligence agencies, President-elect Donald Trump continues to soft-pedal Russia’s aggression, downplay its cyber capabilities and put his own ego ahead of American values and national security. Their intelligence report concluded that Republican entities as well as the Democratic party had been targeted by the Russian cyber attacks.

Andrei Soldatov, a Moscow-based author and journalist who covers Russian surveillance, says he’s disappointed that more details weren’t revealed in the USA intelligence report.