Trump draws ridicule for pledge to work with Russia on election hacks
NEW YORK — Donald Trump claimed victory Sunday after his trip to Europe, describing a new era of co-operation with Russia and outlining plans for a joint cybersecurity unit to protect against election hacking.
In his first public comments on his meeting with Vladimir Putin at last week’s G20 summit in Hamburg, Trump said he “strongly pressed” the Russian president on allegations of Kremlin meddling in the U.S. election, but that it was now “time to move forward in working constructively with Russia.”
Trump delivered his verdict in customary, bombastic style after returning home from Hamburg where he met world leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — using a slew of Twitter messages to declare victory and pour scorn on “fake news”and his political opponents.
“Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded ... and safe,” Trump wrote.
His announcement provoked immediate disbelief from critics that he could consider working with the country accused of orchestrating last year’s cyber attacks in an effort to swing the outcome of the presidential vote.
Ash Carter, former U.S. defence secretary, said it harked back to the days of the Soviet Union.
“When confronted with something they’ve done wrong, ask for US intelligence — old trick; propose a working group — in this case on cyber,” he told CNN. “But this is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary: it’s they who did this.”
Or, as Marco Rubio, who lost the Republican nomination to Trump last year, put it: “While reality and pragmatism requires that we engage Vladimir Putin, he will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner. Partnering with Putin on a ‘Cyber Security Unit’ is akin to partnering with Assad on a ‘Chemical Weapons Unit’. ”
Both Democratic and Republican officials described the president as dangerously naive for trusting his Russian counterpart.
Trump on Sunday falsely accused President Barack Obama of doing “NOTHING” after learning of the Russian hacking before the election. In fact, on Oct. 7, about a month before the election, the Obama administration formally and publicly blamed Russia for the hacking, though some Obama administration officials have since said they regret not responding more forcefully.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded definitively that Russian authorities tried to influence the election in Trump’s favour with illegal hacking and propaganda and other activities. But Trump’s public comments on the matter have been far less definitive, varying widely from tepid acknowledgment to outright doubt about Russia’s role.
Trump did not say whether he accepted Putin’s denial, stating only, “I’ve already given my opinion.”
Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both have said that Trump believed Putin’s assurances that Russia did not interfere in the election.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus disputed Putin and Lavrov’s accounts. “It’s not true,” Priebus, who did not attend the Trump-Putin meeting, said on Fox News Sunday. “The president absolutely did not believe the denial of President Putin.”
Under questioning, Preibus showed varying degrees of certainty about whether Trump believes Russia meddled in the election.
“He said they probably meddled in the election. They did meddle in the election,” Priebus said, seeming to grow more certain.
But, then, Priebus seemed to back off: “Yes, he believes that Russia probably committed all of these acts that we’ve been told of. But he also believes that other countries also participated in this activity.”
John Brennan, who served as CIA director under Obama and ran the agency’s response to Russia’s election interference, chastised Trump on Sunday for repeatedly casting doubt about the conclusions of the intelligence community, including at a news conference last week in Poland.
“I seriously question whether or not Mr. Putin heard from Mr. Trump what he needed to about the assault on our democratic institutions,” Brennan said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Brennan added of Trump, “He said it’s an ‘honour’ to meet President Putin. An honour to meet the individual who carried out the assault against our election? To me, it was a dishonourable thing to say.”