'Like saying Al Qaeda wasn't behind 9/11': National security expert slams Trump denial of Russia hacking
One national security analyst, who is well acquainted with the recent hacking of the 2016 election at the hands of Russians, was shocked to hear President Donald Trump continues to ignore the intelligence.
During an appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper, new communications director Anthony Scaramucci inadvertently revealed that the president still does not believe that Russia was involved in hacking the 2016 election.
“There’s a lot of misinformation,” Scaramucci told Tapper Sunday, dismissing the conclusion of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia hacked the election. “Somebody said to me the other day — I don’t want to say who — if the Russian actually hacked that, this situation and spilled out those emails, you would have never seen it. You would have never had any evidence of them. Meaning that they’re super confident in their deception skills and hacking.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Tapper cut in. “I don’t know who this anonymous person is.”
“How about it’s the president, Jake,” Scaramucci exposed Trump. “He called me from Air Force One and basically said to me, ‘This is — maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it.'”
Asha Rangappa, a legal and national security analyst, explained that Scaramucci's excuse that he couldn't verify the claims because he hasn't yet been granted the proper security clearance level. The new White House staffer claimed that the president told him that if the Russians had hacked the U.S. they wouldn't have left any evidence of it.
"Does he think the Russians are more skilled than his own intelligence officials?" asked CNN host Ana Cabrera.
"That seems to be what he's implying," confessed Rangappa. "I worked counter intelligence investigations, the Russians are a worthy adversary, but we are better. The fact that we have all of this information and intelligence that has been clearly presented to him demonstrates that they had -- we have I'm not sure what else to say about this."
She confessed that she found the denials by Trump to be "troubling."
"It's as if a president after 9/11 had said, 'I don't believe Al Qaeda is behind the 9/11 attacks.' What would we have said at that point? Ultimately he's the one that needs to take action, though I think the sanctions bill is an important step and I hope it will be able to go into effect."
Trump lit up Twitter after a round of golf, angry over a Congress determined to protect Russian sanctions.
Watch the full exchange below:
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