{"id":89110,"date":"2017-11-12T22:30:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T02:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=89110"},"modified":"2017-11-12T22:30:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T02:30:11","slug":"trump-slams-former-us-intel-leaders-as-political-hacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=89110","title":{"rendered":"Trump slams former US intel leaders as ‘political hacks’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brandon Carter
\nThe Hill<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Getty<\/p><\/div>\n

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President Trump on Saturday lashed out at U.S. intelligence leaders for their conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, calling them \u201cpolitical hacks\u201d and slamming the investigations into Russian interference as a \u201cDemocratic hit job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump blasted former U.S. intelligence officials by name, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey.<\/p>\n

“I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks,” Trump said, according to White House\u00a0pool reports. He was discussing the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia\u00a0sought to influence\u00a0the 2016 election in favor of Trump.<\/p>\n

“So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey,” he continued. “Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with them,” he continued, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

Trump said that the investigation into Russian interference in the election was a \u201cDemocratic-inspired thing\u201d and a \u201cpure hit job.”<\/p>\n

Trump went on to say that he wasn\u2019t going to<\/a> \u201cargue\u201d with Putin about whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he didn\u2019t meddle, he said he didn\u2019t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,\u201d Trump said, according to pool reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t stand there and argue with him, I would rather have him get out of Syria, I would rather get to work with him on the Ukraine,” he added.<\/p>\n

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI, have concluded that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, and\u00a0several congressional investigations are currently underway to determine the scale and scope of Russia\u2019s interference.<\/p>\n

Special counsel Robert Mueller is also leading an investigation into potential ties between President Trump\u2019s election campaign and Russian officials.<\/p>\n

Trump is in the middle of a five-nation, 12-day trip to Asia, and is currently in Vietnam. Trump participated overnight in the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum\u00a0in Danang.<\/p>\n

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\nhttp:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/359894-trump-slams-former-us-intel-leaders-as-political-hacks<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}