Trump blasts ‘stupid’ critics

UNITED STATES: Donald Trump said yesterday it would be ‘‘stupid’’ for the US not to develop a close relationship with Russia, despite claims it tried to influence his election victory.

His comments followed the disclosure that British intelligence had warned their US counterparts as far back as 2015 that the Russians were engaged in hacking Democratic Party computers in an attempt to shape the outcome of the presidential election.

US intelligence agencies have accused Vladimir Putin of launching an ‘‘influence campaign’’ to damage Hillary Clinton.

The report, issued on Saturday, said Russia showed a ‘‘clear preference’’ for Donald Trump and carried out cyber attacks and issued propaganda to both boost his chances and undermine confidence in American democracy.

The report, ordered by Barack Obama, concluded that Putin had ‘‘aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting [Hillary] Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavourably to him’’.

It found that British intelligence officials were among the first to raise the alarm and warn America that Russia was responsible for the breach of the Democratic National Committee computer servers.

Trump insisted on Saturday that foreign meddling had ‘‘absolutely no effect’’ on the outcome of the election, and declined to say whether he believed Russia was behind the hacks.

Yesterday he said that only ‘‘stupid’’ people would criticise the US for having a good relationship with Russia.

In the latest of a series of tweets the president-elect wrote: ‘‘Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad!.’’

Another said: ‘‘We have enough

Donald Trump

problems around the world without yet another one. When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!’’

The US intelligence report, reflecting the joint assessment of the CIA and the FBI and the National Security Agency, suggested that some of these early tipoffs about Russia’s activities came from voice intercepts, computer traffic or human sources outside the US, as British intelligence became aware that emails and other data from the DNC was flowing out of the country.

One cyber security expert who has been briefed on the report’s findings said to The New York Times: ‘‘The British picked it up, and we may have had it at about the same time.’’

- Telegraph Group