Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen doesn’t believe Russian election interference favored Trump
From Personal Liberty
President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Thursday echoed President Donald Trump’s insistence that Russia did not seek to aid his White House bid in 2016 — a claim directly contradicting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the Kremlin’s election interference, according to an article published by New York Daily News.
From the article:
“I haven’t seen any evidence” that Russian meddling was intended to help Trump, Nielsen said during an interview with NBC News’ Peter Alexander at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.Nielsen’s stunning claim comes days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said outright he wanted Trump to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because he believed the political neophyte’s policies would be more friendly to the Kremlin.Nielsen said she had not seen any evidence that Russian hackers’ intentions were “to favor a particular political party.”
Daily News then tells us that the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency released a “damning report” in January 2017 that outlined the Kremlin’s clear favoritism for Trump. But what Daily News fails to mention is that the sum of that interference claimed by the intelligence community involved spending some $250,000-$300,000 on ads on Facebook and “propaganda” from Trump operatives appearing on the Russia-sponsored RT news service.
More from the article:
It’s not the first time that Nielsen has claimed she wasn’t aware of Russia’s love of Trump.In May, she said she was unaware of intelligence assessments concluding that the Kremlin was clearly playing favorites.Nielsen on Thursday attempted to clarify her remarks, saying that Russia’s efforts against the 2016 election were to “attack certain political parties … more than others.”When pressed by Alexander, she said she agreed with the intelligence community’s assessment “full stop.”“I agree with the intel community’s assessment full stop — any attack on democracy, which is what that was, whether it is successful or it is unsuccessful, is unacceptable,” Nielsen said.The DHS chief also admitted that Russia still poses a threat, especially in the upcoming midterm elections.“I think we would be foolish to think they’re not. They have the capability, they have the will. We’ve got to be prepared,” she added.
Despite two and a half years of claims – and searches both high and low — that Russia helped to elect Trump and Trump somehow colluded with Russia, no concrete evidence has yet been delivered by the intelligence community or the mainstream media that such a thing occurred.
No comments:
Post a Comment