Unic Press UK: On twitter, the United States president-elect Donald Trump has given countenance to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange position on allegations of Russians hacking into U.S. servers to tilt the U.S. 2016 presidential election in favour of the Republican Party.
Assange, in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, was asked whether Wikileaks received any materials from Russia, or received any materials from anybody associated with Russia. He said:
“Our source is not a state party… Our source is not the Russian government and it is not state party. We published several … emails which shows Podesta responding to a phishing email. Now how did they respond? Podesta gave out that his password was the word ‘password’. So, this is something a 14-year-old kid, a 14-year-old kid could have hacked.” (Assange, January 2017)
Trump’s response to Assange’s comments reads:
"@FoxNews: Julian Assange on U.S. media coverage: “It’s very dishonest.” #Hannity pic.twitter.com/ADcPRQifH9" More dishonest than anyone knows
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Julian Assange said "a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta" – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Long ago, Trump had brought into question the allegations that the Russians influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election through coordinated hacking of U.S. servers. He recently ‘challenged’ the decision of U.S. intelligence agencies to postpone intelligence briefing until Friday.
The "Intelligence" briefing on so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the 29th December 2016, the Obama administration relying on ‘Intelligence’ that the Russian intelligence agencies were behind the cyberattacks/hacking into U.S. servers [including the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers and Hillary Clinton campaign] expelled 35 Russian operatives listed as “persona non grata”.
The Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was advised by the Russian foreign ministry to approve retaliatory measures against the U.S., opted otherwise, saying:
“… We reserve the right to retaliate, but we will not sink to the level of this irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy. We will take further moves on restoring Russian-American relations based on the policies that the administration of President-elect Donald Trump adopts… We will not forbid families and children from spending the New Year’s holidays at the places they are used to. Moreover, I invite the children of all American diplomats with accreditation in Russia to New Year’s and Christmas festivities in the Kremlin…”
