By Reuters | Updated:
Jan 09, 2017, 07.14 AM IST
WASHINGTON:
President-elect Donald Trump accepts the US intelligence community's conclusion
that Russia engaged in cyber attacks during the US presidential election and
may take action in response, his incoming chief of staff said on Sunday.
Reince
Priebus said Trump believed Russia was behind the intrusions into the
Democratic Party organizations, although Priebus did not clarify whether the
president-elect agreed that the hacks were directed by Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
"He
accepts the fact that this particular case was entities in Russia, so that's
not the issue," Priebus said on "Fox News Sunday."
It was the first acknowledgment from a senior
member of the Republican president-elect's team that Trump had accepted that
Russia directed the hacking and subsequent disclosure of Democratic emails
during the 2016 presidential election.
Trump had rebuffed allegations that Russia was behind the
hacks or was trying to help him win, saying the intrusions could have been
carried out by China or a 400-pound hacker on his bed.
With less than two weeks until his Jan. 20
inauguration, Trump has come under increasing pressure from fellow Republicans
to accept intelligence community findings on Russian hacking and other attempts
by Moscow to influence the Nov. 8 election. A crucial test of Republican
support for Trump comes this week with the first confirmation hearings
for his Cabinet picks.
A US intelligence report last week said Putin
directed a sophisticated influence campaign including cyber attacks to
denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and support Trump.
The report, commissioned by Democratic President
Barack Obama in December, concluded vote tallies were not affected by Russian
interference, but did not assess whether it influenced the outcome of the vote
in other ways.
'ACTION MAY BE TAKEN'
After receiving a briefing on Friday from
leaders of the US intelligence agencies, Trump did not refer specifically to
Russia's role in the presidential campaign.
In a statement, he acknowledged that
"Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are
consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our
governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the
Democrat(ic) National Committee."
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told Reuters the
president-elect's conclusions remained the same and that Priebus' comments were
in line with Friday's statement.
Priebus' wording did not appear to foreshadow
the dramatic reversal of Trump's apparent Russia policy that experts say would
be required to deter further cyber attacks.
"It will take a lot more than what we heard
on television today to make Putin cool it," the expert added. "In
fact, there may not be anything that can deter Putin from pursuing a course
he's bet his future and Russia's on," said a US intelligence expert on
Russia, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss domestic political
positions.
The expert added that Putin's "multifaceted campaign of
cyber attacks and espionage, propaganda, financial leverage, fake news and traditional
espionage" had expanded in the United States since the election, "and
it will be a shock if it does not escalate in France, Germany and elsewhere
this year."
Priebus, the former Republican National
Committee chairman Trump tapped as White House chief of staff, said Trump
planned to order the intelligence community to make recommendations as to what
should be done. "Action may be taken," he said, adding there was
nothing wrong with trying to have a good relationship with Russia and other
countries.
Two
senior Republican senators urged Trump to punish Russia in response to US
intelligence agencies' conclusion that Putin personally directed efforts aimed
at influencing the election.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Senators
Lindsey Graham and John McCain said evidence was conclusive that Putin sought
to influence the election - a point that Trump has refuted.
"In
a couple weeks, Donald Trump will be the defender of the free world and
democracy," Graham said. "You should let everybody know in America,
Republicans and Democrats, that you're going to make Russia pay a price for
trying to interfere."
On Saturday, Trump wrote on Twitter that having
a better relationship with Russia was a "good thing."
US Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said three US presidents had
tried and failed to be friends with Putin.
"I'm just not sure it's possible,"
Nunes said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. "I've cautioned his
administration to be careful with Putin, as he remains a bad actor."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed it
was not unusual for a new president to want to get along with the Russians. He
added on CBS however, that the Russians remained a "big adversary, and
they demonstrated it by trying to mess around in our election."
Obama, who himself tried to "reset" relations with
Russia after he took office in 2009, told NBC he did not think he had
underestimated the Russian president.
"But
I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age,
it is possible for misinformation for cyber hacking and so forth to have an
impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into
our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating," he said
in an interview with "Meet the Press" broadcast on Sunday.
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