Obama: Trump should be concerned over Russian hacking

The American leader claims to have evidence that Vladimir Putin directed the hacks that helped to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

In reality the president has barely a month left to act before the inauguration of his successor, President Trump.

Obama is expected to be peppered with questions about the dispute and any subsequent action when he holds a news conference later today before leaving for a vacation in Hawaii.

Despite his assurances, his White House has increasingly been engaged in an escalating rift with Donald Trump’s transition team over Moscow’s intrusion into the U.S. vote.

Experts have not converged on whether Russian Federation set out to help Trump clinch a White House victory, as Clinton’s team says.

He dismissed the President-elect’s response as unserious, and encouraged Trump to answer questions about the hacking instead of questioning United States intelligence.

Russia’s gonna Russia, Obama said.

“That concerns me and it should concern all of us”, he said, “but the truth of the matter is that we all had the information that was out there”. Trump tweeted on Thursday.

“Both adversaries engage in extensive political and economic espionage for the benefit of the government of the Russian Federation and are believed to be closely linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable intelligence services”, it says. “All right?” Trump said. In excerpts from an interview with NPR published yesterday, Obama declared his intention to “take action” against the Russian hacks – that “action” is something the press will nearly certainly ask the president about today.

‘It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond, ‘ Trump said in a statement.

Obama said he feels “responsible” for some of the suffering in Syria, but he defended his decision to avoid significant military action there.

Obama did not publicly support that theory Friday. But he said he will still insist on a smooth transition to help Mr. Trump’s team take over power.

“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russian Federation, or others, not to do this to us, because we can do stuff to you”, he said.

While Obama has ordered his own inquiry, a political battle is already being waged in Washington between Republicans who want a Congressional process they can control and Democrats who want to see something like the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

Obama is sure to be asked how the USA might be responding to cyberattacks related to the election that the US intelligence community has blamed on Russian Federation. It motivated the White House to alter its approach.

In his briefings, Earnest has resumed tying Trump to Russian Federation, a staple of Obama’s own campaign stump speech.

Slapping sanctions on Putin’s inner circle would put Trump, the 70-year-old Republican president-in-waiting, in a hard position once in office: repealing the sanctions would spark accusations of being too cozy with Moscow, a stated policy shift that has alarmed some in his own Republican Party. “His campaign didn’t make any effort to obscure this”. “This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage”, he said.

He also chided Republicans who support Putin.

“It benefited the Trump campaign”.

Clinton’s speech, the donors said, was not deeply reflective and instead urged them to stay engaged with the Democratic Party. “That is why in the days leading up to election day, the Republican nominee himself was encouraging people to check out WikiLeaks”.

“That shouldn’t be a partisan issue”, Obama went on.