Donald Trump Blames Obama For Russian Election Hacks
U.S. President Donald Trump has blamed his predecessor, President Barack Obama, for letting the Russians hack the 2016 presidential election. Claims have been made that the Trump campaign had established connections with the Russian government, who orchestrated the hacks on the DNC servers, in effect helping Trump win the election. Trump has rubbished these claims, but the investigation is still ongoing.
Trump posted a series of tweets early Thursday morning regarding the ongoing investigations. He started off by stating that former Homeland Security Adviser Jeh Johnson was the latest intelligence official to deny any connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump went on to add that if there had, in fact, been an attempted interference by the Russian government, former President Barack Obama should have tried to stop it. He finally claimed that the whole investigation was a big hoax orchestrated by the Democratic Party.
Former Homeland Security Advisor Jeh Johnson is latest top intelligence official to state there was no grand scheme between Trump & Russia.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took place during the Obama Admin. Why didn't they stop them?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
…Why did the DNC REFUSE to turn over its Server to the FBI, and still hasn't? It's all a big Dem scam and excuse for losing the election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
President Trump was referring to Wednesday’s congressional testimony by former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Johnson revealed that the DNC had declined an offer by the Department of Homeland Security to help them after their email servers had been hacked. The Department of Homeland Security, with help from the FBI, offered to identify the intruders and fix the vulnerabilities in the DNC servers.
DNC officials have claimed that the offer from the DHS came months after the revelation of the hack and after the FBI had begun their work in stopping the intrusion. DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson released a statement responding to Trump’s tweet, stating that the DNC will cooperate fully in helping the ongoing investigation on the Russian interference of the 2016 presidential Election, the Washington Post reports.
“The DNC has and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement on Russia’s interference in our election. The DNC has been in regular contact with the FBI for many months and the FBI confirmed the DNC has provided all the information it needed to make its assessment.”
Trump made a careful choice of words in his tweet blaming Obama for not doing enough to prevent the Russian intrusion. Trump used the words “if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election,” implying that he still isn’t convinced that Russia directly interfered in the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks or other means.
[Featured Image by Scott Olson/Getty Images]
