A former Pentagon and CIA spokesman on Wednesday slammed Donald Trump for giving credit to WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange and warned that America will be less safe when the President-elect takes office later this month.
“Let’s stare this reality square in the face: PEOTUS is pro-Putin and believes Julian Assange over the @CIA. On Jan. 20 we will be less safe,” tweeted George Little, who served under former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
Trump has repeatedly questioned and dismissed the intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russian government was behind election-related hacking.
Despite not trusting their findings, the intelligence community is the main body Trump will rely on for security advice as head of state.
Trump also tweeted intelligence officials postponed an “‘intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking'” that they were set to deliver to him this week because they might need more time “to build a case.” He called the move “very strange.”
The consensus in the Obama administration and the uniform opinion of the US intelligence community is that the Russian government was involved, but Assange said in an interview Tuesday that he does not believe that is clear and that Wikileaks didn’t get the hacked info it published from the Russians.
Trump turned the blame on the Democratic National Committee.
“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,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Assange told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview that aired Tuesday that WikiLeaks’ source for the material he hacked was not “Russia or anyone associated with Russia.”
“Our source is not a state party. So the answer — for our interactions — is no,” said Assange from his quarters at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has lived under diplomatic protection since 2012.