Trump Denies Cyber Attacks On Russia That Intelligence Agencies Never Told Him About, Worried He’d Expose Them

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies have planted destructive software deep inside the Russian electrical power grid, with the potential to cripple Russia’s entire power system, and they have not told Donald Trump because they fear that he would expose the entire, super-secret operation, according to a blockbuster new report published Saturday by The New York Times.

The NYT report so angered Trump that he took to his Twitter account on Saturday evening, denouncing the paper for what he called “a virtual act of Treason” and flatly terming the story of the U.S. cyber attacks against Russia, “not true.”

Trump, of course, has been linked with Russian interests at least since his 2016 presidential campaign, during which he and his campaign “welcomed” and expected to “benefit electorally” from Russia’s election interference operation, which was designed to help him win the presidency, according to the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller in his report, available online via The New York Times.

Trump has also been widely criticized for his apparently deferential posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, even being seen to “take Putin’s side” in a dispute with U.S. intelligence agencies concerning the 2016 elections, according to CNN.

In an Oval Office meeting with top Russian officials on May 10, 2017, Trump passed top secret classified information to the Russians regarding an anti-terrorist operation reportedly conducted by Israel, as The Inquisitr reported at the time.

All of those factors may have weighed in the intelligence agency’s decision to keep Trump in the dark about the anti-Russian cyber attacks, according to a CNN report.

There was “broad hesitation to go into detail” with Trump about the operation, due to “the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials,” the NYT wrote.

In his Saturday evening Twitter posts, Trump did not mention the story’s claim that he was not informed of the cyber operation against Russia, instead attacking what he called “our Corrupt News Media today,” as The Daily Beast reported. Trump went on in the Twitter messages to refer to the news media as “true cowards and without doubt, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”

In 2017, even as Mueller was investigating Russian cyber attacks against the 2016 presidential election, Trump startled even fellow Republicans when he announced that he had agreed to collaborate with Putin on creating “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit,” according to Reuters, drawing disbelief that Trump would consider entering into a joint cyber security pact with the very country that had carried out a cyber attack on the United States.

National Security Council officials declined to confirm or deny the NYT report, but differing with Trump, told the paper they had “no national security concerns” about the content of the report.