Obama Officials Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking
In the last days of the Obama administration, according to the New York Times, “some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of Donald Trump and Russians — across the government.”
Basically Obama officials wanted to make sure Trump and his associates couldn’t cover anything up.
The Times also reported that British and Dutch allies provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and Trumps associates. Separately, our intelligence agencies intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump’s associates.
Trump has continued to deny that his campaign had any contact with Russian officials, and suggested that intelligence agencies had created false information. Trump also accused the Obama administration of hyping the Russia story line in order to discredit his election win.
Former officials say they had two aims when preserving this information: “to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.”
Sean Spicer, Trump’s White House Press Secretary commented, “The only new piece of information that has come to light is that political appointees in the Obama administration have sought to create a false narrative to make an excuse for their own defeat in the election. There continues to be no there, there.”
RELATED:
AG Sessions Lied to Senate, Spoke Twice With Russian Amb. During Campaign
AP: Trump White House Told To Preserve Russia-Related Documents
