{"id":283239,"date":"2017-01-09T15:28:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T15:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=283239"},"modified":"2017-01-09T15:28:54","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T15:28:54","slug":"trump-election-russia-tired-of-us-hacking-witch-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=283239","title":{"rendered":"Trump election: Russia &#8216;tired&#8217; of US hacking &#8216;witch-hunt&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Russia says US allegations that it ran a hacking campaign to influence the American presidential elections are &#8220;reminiscent of a witch-hunt&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow was tired of the accusations.<\/p>\n<p>He said a report released by US intelligence agencies detailing the allegations was groundless.<\/p>\n<p>It is the first official reaction from Russia since President-elect Donald Trump received the report on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The unclassified report contains allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the hacking of Democratic Party emails to damage Donald Trump&#8217;s Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton, and influence the election.<\/p>\n<p>In his comments on Monday, Mr Peskov said Russia &#8220;categorically denied that Moscow had been involved in any hacking attacks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Groundless accusations which are not supported by anything are being rehearsed in an amateurish, unprofessional way. We don&#8217;t know what information they are actually relying on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The claims amounted to a &#8220;witch-hunt&#8221;, he added.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<p class=\"story-body__crosshead\"><strong>Key findings of report<\/strong><strong>\u00a0(unclassified version):<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Kremlin had &#8220;clear preference&#8221; for Mr Trump to win US election, with goal to &#8220;undermine public faith in US democratic process and &#8220;denigrate&#8221; Hillary Clinton<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Russian military intelligence hacked into the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and top Democrats<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">They used intermediaries such as WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com and Guccifer 2.0 persona to release the information acquired from the hackings<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">They also used state-funded propaganda and paid social media users or &#8220;trolls&#8221; to make nasty comments<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Vote tallies were not affected by Russian interference<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<p>Mr Trump used the same &#8220;witch-hunt&#8221; term last week in a New York Times interview to disparage the hacking claims, which he has repeatedly rejected since winning the presidential election in November.<\/p>\n<p>But his incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, told Fox News Sunday that the president-elect had accepted the findings of the report, which was presented to him by intelligence chiefs on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s not denying that entities in Russia were behind this particular campaign,&#8221; Mr Priebus added.<\/p>\n<p>He did not clarify whether Mr Trump believed the report&#8217;s assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directly ordered the hack.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump described his meeting on Friday with National Intelligence Director James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey as &#8220;constructive&#8221; and said he would ask, within 90 days of taking office, for a plan on how to stop cyber attacks.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1834D\/production\/_93294199_gettyimages-trump_clapper.jpg\" alt=\"Composite image of Donald Trump and James Clapper\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">GETTY IMAGES<\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Donald Trump met senior US intelligence figures, including Gen James Clapper (right)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But he declined to single out Russia, saying it was one of several countries, outside groups and people who &#8220;are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat(ic) National Committee&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>With less than two weeks until his inauguration, Mr Trump is under increasing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to respond to the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>President Obama has already expelled 35 Russian diplomats from US soil over the hacking. Russia said it would not reciprocate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia says US allegations that it ran a hacking campaign to influence the American presidential elections are &#8220;reminiscent of a witch-hunt&#8221;. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow was tired of the accusations. He said a report released by US intelligence agencies detailing the allegations was groundless. It is the first official reaction from Russia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":283244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}