President-elect Donald Trump speculated Monday that if the tables were turned and he had lost the election, allegations of Russian hacking would be dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
Trump has repeatedly shot down the emerging American intelligence that Russian interference in the 2016 election was meant to bolster his campaign. In an interview with TIME for Person of the Year, Trump said he did not believe the Russians interfered. “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey,” he said. “I believe that it could have been Russia and it could have been any one of many other people.”
On Monday, Trump continued his denial, suggesting there was a political motivation behind the intelligence community’s assessment.
Trump also asked why questions or warnings about Russian hacks were not brought up during the election, when in fact they were. In late August, officials indicated that there had been attempts to hack election systems and access voter information across the country. While it would have been difficult to impact the actual vote count, that likely was not what Russian actors wanted to do.
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