Donald Trump said the focus on Russian involvement in hacking the 2016 election is “a political witch hunt.”
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” he told The New York Times in an interview publish Friday, referencing the past breach of computers at the Office of Personnel Management. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
The President-elect spoke with the paper to defend Russia hours before his briefing with intelligence officials scheduled for Friday.
The declassified public version of the intelligence cmmunity’s review of the election-related hacking will be released as soon as Friday afternoon, a US official told CNN.
The same official added that the timing is fluid given that Trump has yet to be briefed by intelligence leaders at Trump Tower, which is expected to happen at around 12:30 p.m. ET Friday.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced at a news conference earlier that she and other congressional leaders had been briefed by intelligence officials before they traveled to New York to meet Trump.
“Stunning in its conclusions and you will see some of it,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill, describing the information in the briefing.
