TRUMP CONCEDES RUSSIAN HACKING

Will retaliate, top aide suggests

WASHINGTON • Donald Trump has finally accepted that Russia was behind the hack of Democrat emails, his chief of staff has said, as the incoming president’s team embarks on an offensive to assuage mounting concerns about his reluctance to believe U.S. intelligence reports.

Reince Priebus, the most “establishment” member of Trump’s top team, went on TV Sunday to say that Trump now accepted that the Kremlin was to blame. The president-elect, he said, “is not denying that entities in Russia were behind this particular hacking campaign.”

The comments from Trump’s incoming chief of staff mark the first time that anyone from Trump’s senior team has accepted the intelligence findings.

Priebus also said that Trump would retaliate. That’s more than Trump himself has said, and he hasn’t responded to calls for Washington to retaliate. Those are decisions, aides said, that Trump will make after he becomes president on Jan. 20, though he and some of his cabinet nominees could face sharp questioning this week.

But even as Priebus was speaking, another of Trump’s senior staff members, Kellyanne Conway, was still referring to “alleged attacks” and refusing to confirm that Trump would punish the Kremlin.

Conway, who appears to be a permanent fixture at Trump’s side and with perhaps a closer understanding of the president-elect than many in his team, insisted on turning the questions around to emphasize that Trump legitimately won the election.

“All of this amounts to a simple fact: alleged attacks on our democracy failed,” said Conway.

“Donald Trump won. Hillary Clinton was viewed as unlikable — that had nothing to do with Moscow.”

When asked why she insisted on referring to the hack as “allegedly” coming from Russia, she replied: “Alleged to interfere with our democracy, and they did not succeed.”

She added: “I keep hearing that we’re so reluctant (to accept Russian blame). “Yes he sees. Read his statement. He knows that Russia tries to hack.

“But where was the outcry when China hacked 21 million citizens? Everything changed when the election result was not what they anticipated.”

An unclassified version of the report directly tied Russian President Vladimir Putin to election meddling and said that Moscow had a “clear preference” for Trump over Clinton.

Trump and his allies have bristled at any implication that the meddling helped him win the election. He won the Electoral College vote with 306 votes, topping the 270 votes required to become president.

On Saturday, Trump was still tweeting in anger at the disclosures about Russian involvement — insisting that the hack had not won him the election, though there have been no suggestions that the voting process itself was hacked.

“Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results.

“Voting machines not touched!” he tweeted.

On Friday, U.S. intelligence officials briefed the president-elect on their conclusions that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Priebus attended along with Trump.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the briefing, Trump said he “learned a lot” from his discussions with intelligence officials.

But he declined to say whether he accepted their assertion about Russia’s motives.

Trump has said warm relations with Russia are a good thing and that only “stupid” people would disagree.

Lindsay Graham, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination, attempted to soothe the president-elect, saying: “Putin is not the reason Trump won and Clinton lost.

“But I hope you will join Republicans and Democrats to push back against this.”

He added: “If after the briefing he is still unsure, that will shake me to the core.”

“My suspicion is these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“The Russians are clearly a big adversary. And they demonstrated it by trying to mess around in our election.”