President-elect Donald Trump on
Wednesday again cast doubt on US
intelligence findings that Russia hacked the
presidential election, repeating WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange's assertion that
leaked information damaging to Democrats
did not come from Moscow.
"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!" the Republican posted on his
preferred communication platform, Twitter.
Trump was referring to thousands of emails
hacked from the Democratic National Committee
and from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta ,
which were published by WikiLeaks in the weeks
ahead of the November 8 presidential election.
" Somebody hacked the DNC but why did they
not have 'hacking defense' like the RNC has, "
Trump added, referring to the Republican
National Committee .
The US intelligence community has concluded
that the hack-and-release of the emails was
designed to put Trump -- a political neophyte
who has praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin
-- into the Oval Office.
Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the allegations
that it was responsible for the cyber-meddling.
Assange said in an interview with Fox television
broadcast Tuesday that Podesta's Gmail account
was "something a 14-year-old kid could have
hacked."
He insisted that no Russian government-linked
party was the source of the hacked material.
"The source is not the Russian government.
It is not state parties, " the 45-year-old
Australian told Fox.
Trump has asserted that US intelligence services
were mistaken when they said Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction, a finding that led the
country into war, and has publicly and repeatedly
questioned their work.
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