The White House said Wednesday that the email hacking of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is “consistent” with previous cyber attacks committed by Russia.
“The thing that I can tell you about the intelligence community analysis is that at least some of the disclosures in recent months, including documents that were released by Guccifer 2.0, DC Leaks and WikiLeaks, are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
He added, “That’s a source of some concern because the intelligence community has concluded with high confidence that they’re doing so to try to destabilize our democracy, and that’s something that obviously the president takes quite seriously.”
Mr. Earnest said he couldn’t give a firm assessment of the theft of the personal emails of Mr. Podesta, who also worked as counselor to President Obama.
“But, in general, the kinds of disclosures that we’ve seen, including at WikiLeaks, of stolen emails from people who play an important role in our political process, is consistent with Russian-directed efforts,” he said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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