Russian Hacking Is Creating A Fissure Between Trump And Some Lawmakers

– President-elect Donald Trump has tapped ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department, dismissing concerns about the businessman’s close ties to Russian Federation and bringing a long public audition process to a conclusion.

Last week, it was reported the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded a secret investigation that revealed strong signs of Russian interference in the election, including the hacking of multiple Democratic officials. The Times report admits there is no concrete evidence for the charge but states that intelligence officials believe there is a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence.

Trump said Sunday he isn’t opposed to a further probe of foreign hacking, but said it shouldn’t focus only on Russian Federation.

Nonetheless, Trump critics are sounding the alarm. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asserted that the RNC wasn’t hacked. “This simply can not be a partisan issue”, he said during a press conference.

The hacked emails were a regular source of embarrassment to the Clinton campaign during the presidential race. Perhaps those machines could have been hacked by computer experts from Russian Federation. “The debate isn’t about whether Russian Federation hacked the elections, it’s about whether Trump is a legitimate president or not”, Bambenek said. But in a noteworthy departure from Trump’s rejection of that conclusion, McConnell said the Senate Intelligence Committee would study the issue. He said the intelligence panel is well suited to do the work.

The latter reactions are more than a bit hysterical, according to Frank Gaffney. The council provides policy advice to the president.

“It’s fragmentary at best”. Trump has also selected a handful of congressional lawmakers for other top jobs.

And he said the reaction on the political left is going to make getting real answers much more hard. “Frankly, it’s become a very political organization”.

Trump, by contrast, has said that he does not believe Russian Federation was involved in the hacking at all, calling the idea “ridiculous” and has questioned the integrity of the Intelligence Community, accusing the various of agencies of reaching politically motivated conclusions.

President Obama wants the investigation done before he’s slated to leave office on January 20. ‘But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation, ‘ he told Reuters. Nor should it entrust him, once president, to act on or make public a report that might indict him of one. “It’s a confused situation, to say the least”, he said. “As a nation it’s time to get to the bottom of it and learn what we can do to prevent it from ever happening again”, he said. He says notions of meddling in the campaign “was not a secret” before Election Day, Nov. 8, in the United States.

Early in the company’s efforts to gain access to the Russian market, Tillerson cut a deal with state-owned Rosneft.

“I think it’s ridiculous”, Trump said in an interview aired on Fox News Sunday. Joke or not, it suggests Mr. Trump fails to fully appreciate that cybersecurity – what he called “the cyber” in a rambling, grasping answer in one debate – is as grave a threat today as actual war. “We don’t have as good insight into that”, the DNI said.

President Lyndon Johnson reads the president’s daily brief. His pick for National Security Adviser, retired Army General Michael Flynn, is an outspoken critic of the USA intelligence services as a whole.