Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway on Friday rejected the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, saying “conclusive evidence” has not yet been provided to the President-elect.
“Remember, the moment you mention Russian hacking and the election, the same sentence, you know what the impression is for a lot of the viewers,” she told CNN’s Chris Cuomo in a contentious interview on CNN’s “New Day.”
Trump’s former campaign adviser also said Hillary Clinton’s team continues to suggest that Russia wanted Trump to beat the Democratic presidential nominee.
“I really believe that there are those out there who are trying to delegitimize his presidency, review the election results, and you know it,” she said.
US intelligence agencies have consistently said they have evidence showing the Russian government attempted to influence the 2016 president election through cyberhacking.
But Conway denies the suggestion that Russia wanted Trump to win.
“The Russians didn’t want him elected, because he has said very clearly during the campaign and now as President-elect that he is going to modernize our nuclear capability, he’s going to call for an increase in defense budget, he’s going to have oil and gas exploration — all which goes against Russia’s economic and military interests,” she said.
“Donald Trump got elected in part because people want a tougher leader in the White House, a tougher Commander-in-Chief,” Conway added.
Trump has been criticized for giving credence to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who said his hacked information did not come from Russia.
Trump and his Vice President-elect Mike Pence are scheduled to receive a security briefing Friday.
Conway said Trump and his team respect the intelligence community, but that they have not provided conclusive evidence on the alleged hacking.
“The idea that somehow conclusive evidence has been out there in the public domain provided to the President-elect is simply not true,” she said. “And the other thing that’s going on here that’s very disappointing to us in this building is how much people are conflating alleged Russian hacking with the actual outcome of the election. It’s just nonsense.”
Conway said any suggestion that Trump is trying to shelter Russia is unfair.
“Here is the deal. The President-elect and all of us who work for him and the Vice President-elect, I assure you, are against any foreign interference in the United States of America including through cybersecurity, which obviously has not been a big priority for the last eight years. maybe that will change,” she said.