How Donald Trump and Intelligence Agencies Differ on 2016 Hacking
Trump and intelligence agencies engage in, "he said, they said."
— -- Since reports emerged last summer that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, Donald Trump has questioned U.S. intelligence agencies’ assertions that Russia is behind the election meddling.
Here is what Trump has recently said (and tweeted), versus what the U.S. intelligence community -- including the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- has said on the matter:
On WikiLeaks’ Getting the Leaked Emails From Russia
TRUMP: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Fox News Jan. 3 that the Russian government was not its source for the hacked emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The president-elect seemed to side with Assange, despite his tweeting today that he “simply state[s] what he states.”
U.S. INTELLIGENCE: A joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence’s (DNI) in October stated, “The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.”
“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”
That Russia Is Behind the Hack
TRUMP: In an interview with Fox News that aired Dec. 11, Trump said of the intelligence community: “They have no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place.”
Before his New Year’s Eve party at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida Saturday, Trump told reporters that he wanted U.S. intelligence to be “sure” that Russia was responsible for the interfering “because it’s a pretty serious charge.”
U.S. INTELLIGENCE: The October statement from the two agencies, DHS and DNI, concluded that the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is “confident” the Russian government directed the hacking.
U.S. and foreign intelligence officials told ABC News Dec. 15 that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the hacking of the DNC.
Forensic evidence pulled from the computers at the DNC pointed to Russian involvement, a cybersecurity expert told ABC News.
The Russians planted software in the DNC computers to send information back to Russia, according to Justin Harvey, who works at Accenture and was involved in the investigation into the DNC hack while working for a different firm.
“We saw the Cyrillic alphabet being used in the compiler, we saw the level of complexity of the malware is not your run-of-the-mail ransomware cybercriminal that perhaps sits in their mother's basement, it was very much nation-state level, very complex code that was being utilized,” Harvey told ABC News in July.
“It was an IP address that had been previously seen in other Russian-attributed attacks.”
On ‘Full Review’ of Hacking Report
The intelligence community completed its “full review” of Russia’s alleged cyberattacks during U.S. elections dating back to 2008, which was ordered by Obama last month, and is expected to give a classified briefing on the report to President-elect Trump Friday.
Speaking to reporters Dec. 31 at his Mar-a-Lago club before his New Year’s Eve bash, Trump hinted that he would receive an intelligence briefing on Tuesday or Wednesday on the hackings. He then tweeted Tuesday that the intelligence briefing “was delayed.”
But a source familiar with the matter told ABC News that the briefing had always been slated for Friday.
ABC News’ Justin Fishel, Mike Levine, Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz, Megan Christie, and Randy Kreider contributed to this report.
Related Topics
Related Stories
ABC News Live