Donald Trump says ..‘I don’t believe that rubbish ...on Russia’s help in US election win

hehehe....President-elect Donald Trump dismissed a brewing storm over Russian cyber meddling in the US election, rejecting as “ridiculous” reports that the CIA has concluded that Moscow was trying to help him win the White House.

“I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it,” Trump said in an interview recorded on Saturday but broadcast Sunday on Fox News.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump said.

In the interview Trump touched on other issues — questioning US commitment to the “one China policy” without concessions from Beijing, ccriticising”out of control” Pentagon arms contracts, and hailing Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, who is under consideration for secretary of state, as “a world class player.”

But the controversy over the latest US intelligence consensus on Russia and Trump’s scepticism of the findings dominated the conversation at a time of deepening political divisions over how to respond to the hacking attacks.

Two top Republican senators — John McCain and Lindsey Graham — joined leading Democrats Sunday in calling for greater public disclosure about “recent cyber attacks that have cut to the heart of our free society.”

“This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country,” they said in a joint statement with Chuck Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader in the Senate, and Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

They pledged to work across party lines to have the incidents investigated, but other Republicans said the evidence does not support the conclusions that the Russian meddling was aimed at helping Trump.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s transition team said on Saturday, in an extraordinary rebuke of the spy agency.

Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the hacking was definitely the work of the Russians.

“This was not China. This wasn’t a 400 pound guy in New Jersey or anyone else,” Schiff said, mocking similar comments Trump has made. “This was the Russians.”

He added: “The fact that we have a President-elect who is willing to disregard the overwhelming evidence of the intelligence community just on the basis of the Russian involvement in the hacking of institutions, tells me this will be a President who will disregard even the best assessments of the intelligence community when it doesn’t suit his own version of events. That is extraordinarily damaging.”

– CIA finding –

US intelligence has previously linked Russia to leaks of damaging email from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign but saw it as a broad bid to undermine confidence in the US political process.

On Friday, however, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has concluded that the aim of the cyber intrusions was to help Trump win the election.

The New York Times quoted a senior administration officials as saying there was “high confidence” that the Russians hacked both the Democratic and Republican National Committees, but leaked only documents damaging to Clinton through WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied links with Russia’s government.

Trump dismissed the reports as an attempt by Democrats to excuse their embarrassing election loss, asserting that US spy agencies were fighting among themselves and there is “great confusion” over the issue.

“Nobody really knows,” he said. “They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. They have no idea.”

Trump suggested he had little confidence in the US intelligence agencies and would clean house once in office.

“We’re going to have different people coming in because we have our people, they have their people. And I have great respect for them. But if you read the stories, the various stories, they’re disputing. And certain groups don’t necessarily agree.”

Trump has kept the US intelligence community at arms length since his election, pointedly eschewing their daily briefing on world threats.

“I get it when I need it,” he said.

“You know, I’m a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years. Could be eight years.”

“I don’t need that. But I do say if something should change, let us know.”

– Exxon chief for state? –

Moscow’s motives have drawn attention in part because Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, and talked of working more closely with Russia to defeat the Islamic State group.

Rex Tillerson, said to be Trump’s top choice for secretary of state, would bring to his cabinet a man with extensive business dealings with Russia as well as other problematic countries.

“In his case, he’s much more than a business executive. He’s a world class player,” Trump said of Tillerson, a 64-year-old Texan who has run Exxon since 2006, making oil and gas deals worldwide.

“To me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players. And he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company, not for himself,” he said.

– Raw nerve –

On China, Trump touched a raw nerve by questioning whether the United States should continue its “one China policy” without concessions from Beijing on trade and other issues.

“I don’t want China dictating to me,” Trump said as he made a vehement defense of his recent phone conversation with the president of Taiwan.

“I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” he added in the interview on Fox News Sunday.

Since 1972, the United States has recognized that “there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China.”
 
hehe....A growing number of senators on both sides of the aisle are calling for investigations into Russian involvement in the U.S. election process.
“I think we need to get to the bottom of it,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in a Sunday morning interview with ABC’s “This Week. “And I think there should be an investigation because in order to defend ourselves against other adversarial countries, we have to protect our information.”
The CIA concluded in a secret assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election not merely to mess around with the democratic system but to more specifically help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the findings. “That’s the consensus view.”
On Sunday morning, a bipartisan group of high-ranking senators released a statement underscoring the severity of these revelations and urging Republicans and Democrats to take them seriously.
“Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks,” read the statement from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an Armed Services Committee member; Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the incoming minority leader for his caucus; and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee.
“This cannot become a partisan issue,” they added. “The stakes are too high for our country. We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security.”
During the election, emails from the Democratic National Committee and the private account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, were hacked and released on WikiLeaks. The DNC emails, in particular, caused turmoil within the party as supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) accused party officials of tipping the scales for Clinton during the primary based on exchanges in the released emails.
On NBC’S “Meet the Press” Sunday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said there was “no doubt that the Russians hacked our institutions.”
“Plainly they were after discord and in this they were spectacularly successful. But it wasn’t alone to try and sow discord,” Schiff said. “They had a candidate with pro-Putin, pro-Russian views who belittled NATO, who was willing to potentially remove sanctions on Russia ― and by contrast they had in Secretary Clinton a candidate very tough on Russia and who they blamed ... for the protest, the mass demonstrations against the corruption in the Russian elections in 2011.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, also said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday that she supports investigations into Russia.
“This should be not only about protecting us going forward but this is a form of warfare for Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and a bully and has the friends around the globe that we don’t want to be friends with,” she said, adding, “I’ve had briefings just this last week that indicate that this is a very serious issue for the American people to understand. And for Donald Trump to dismiss out of hand the intelligence community’s fact gathering is, frankly ― doesn’t bode well for him protecting our country.”
Trump has repeatedly denied Russia interference and told “Fox News Sunday” that it was “ridiculous” and an “excuse” to undermine his win.
“No, I don’t believe that at all,” he said.
“Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting,” he added. “Once they hack if you don’t catch them in the act you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. I mean, they have no idea.”
During the campaign season, Trump consistently praised Russia, even saying during a debate that the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, “has been a leader far more than our president has been.”

AFP