According to White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, President-elect Donald Trump and top members of his team have “lucrative” links with Moscow.
US President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, November 10, 2016 (Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)
President-elect Donald Trump and top members of his team have “lucrative” links with Russia, including the Russian RT media service, spokesman for President Barack Obama, Josh Earnest, said at the daily briefing on Monday.
“It was the president-elect who refused to disclose his financial connections to Russia,” said Earnest. “It was the president-elect who hired a campaign chairman with extensive, lucrative, personal financial ties to Russia. It was the president-elect who had national security advisor on the campaign that had been a paid contributor to RT, the Russian propaganda outlet.”
According to the White House press secretary, cyberattacks on the main rival of the Republican presidential nominee brought ‘benefits’ to the latter, and “his campaign did not make any effort to obscure this.”
Earnest has directly blamed Trump not only for turning a blind eye to Russia’s “attempt to destabilize our political system,” but even for ordering Moscow to attack Hillary Clinton.
“The President-elect did not call it into question. He called on Russia to hack his opponent. He called on Russia to hack Secretary Clinton,” President Barack Obama’s spokesman said, however, did not provide any proof of his words. “He certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on.”
Since October, the White House has been accusing Russia of cyberattacks on the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and Clinton in an attempt to interfere in the US presidential elections in order to help Trump to win.
Last week, the Washington Post newspaper reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced that people, associated with the Russian government, used hacker attacks to steal documents of the Democratic Party, sent them to the WikiLeaks website and helped in this way republican Trump to win the election. Trump himself said that such accusations are “ridiculous.”
“I think it is ridiculous. I think it is just another excuse. I do not believe it,” he told Fox News.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reported, citing three American officials, that the US intelligence community has not agreed with the conclusions of the CIA that Moscow influenced the US presidential election, helping Trump to win.
According to the US intelligence community, there are no convincing evidences of the Moscow’s influence, and the CIA conclusions are based on “a thin reed.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also has not supported the CIA conclusions.
Spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, also noted that the CIA did not provide any evidences of the fact that the hacker attacks were carried out by the Russian side.
