United States President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without providing evidence that China, and not Russia, may be behind the widespread cyberattacks against the country’s government agencies and private companies, reported AP. His assertion came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the hacks.
In a series of tweets, which were flagged by the microblogging website, Trump scoffed at the focus on the Kremlin and downplayed the intrusions.
“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality,” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. “I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream [a reference to the American media] is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).”
The outgoing president also linked the attack to his claims of electoral fraud in the presidential elections, which he lost to Joe Biden, but which he has not conceded. “There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election,” Trump wrote. “Which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA.”
Unidentified officials told AP that the White House was prepared to release a statement on Friday afternoon, accusing Russia of being “the main actor” in the hack, but were told at the last minute to stand down.
Pompeo on Saturday had said the central government was still “unpacking” the cyberattack and some of the information related to it would likely remain classified. “This was a very significant effort and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” he had said in the interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin.
Though Pompeo was the first from the Trump administration to publicly blame Russia for the attacks, cybersecurity experts and other US officials have clearly indicated over the past week that the operation appears to be the work of Russia. Kremlin, however, had denied any involvement in the breach.
It was not clear exactly what the hackers sought, but experts say it could include “nuclear secrets, blueprints for advanced weaponry, COVID-19 vaccine-related research and information for dossiers on government and industry leaders”.
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