Putin: Go hack yourself
You faked it, but deserve hit anyway, he says
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin said Sunday that American spies could have easily faked evidence of hacking to create the appearance of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.
And, who are American officials, anyway, to moralize about election hacking, when the U.S. is trying to control campaigns all over the world? he asked.
“Hackers can be anywhere,” Putin said in an interview during NBC’s debut of “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly.”
“They can be in Russia, in Asia, even in America, Latin America. There can even be hackers by the way, in the United States, who very skillfully and professionally shifted the blame, as we say, onto Russia. Can you imagine something like that? In the midst of a political battle, by some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information so they released it, citing Russia. Can you imagine something like that? I can.”
Putin said evidence tying Russia to election hacking was ridiculous.
“What fingerprints or hoof-prints or horn-prints, what are you talking about?” Putin said. “IP addresses? They can be invented, you know? There are a lot of specialists who can even make it so it comes from your home IP address, as if your 3-year-old daughter carried out the attack.”
Putin went on to resurrect a conspiracy theory about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy that involves the CIA murdering the President and pinning the blame on Russia.
“There’s a theory that Kennedy’s assassination was arranged by the U.S. intelligence services,” Putin said.
The Russian leader again denied the veracity of any accusations of Moscow meddling, saying it’s the U.S. that pokes its nose in elections where it doesn’t belong.
“Put your finger anywhere on a map of the world, and everywhere you will hear complaints that American officials are interfering in internal electoral processes,” he said.
Kelly pushed back, suggesting that Putin was finger-pointing to justify his own country’s actions, an assertion he denied. Putin also denied having any dirt on President Trump.
“Well, this is just another load of nonsense,” he said. “Where would we get this information from? There was a time when he used to come to Moscow, but, you know, I never met him. Do you think we’re gathering information on all of the Americans? Have you all lost your sense over there?”
Putin additionally pooh-poohed any significance to a Kremlin dinner where he was seated next to former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“You and I, you and I personally, have a much closer relationship than I had with Mr. Flynn,” Putin told Kelly.
Flynn resigned just 24 days into the job after reports emerged that he secretly spoke with a Russian ambassador in December about sanctions and lied about it.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Flynn’s ties to foreign governments, and the case of the retired general has been looped into the FBI probe of the Trump campaign’s alleged Russia relations.
Flynn has long been under fire for his appearance at a December 2015 dinner in Moscow celebrating the 10th anniversary of RT, the state-run TV network. He was paid at least $45,000 to give a talk at the gala, and he was photographed sitting next to Putin at a table filled with Russian luminaries.