Elections

Donna Brazile Contradicts Obama’s Claim That Hacking Stopped After His Warning To Putin [VIDEO]

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

Donna Brazile, the interim head of the Democratic National Committee, disputed President Obama’s recent claim that the Russian government stopped hacking Democrats’ emails after he warned Russian president Vladimir Putin of consequences for the attacks several months ago.

“President Obama also said that the cyber attacks stopped after he warned Putin… is that right that they stopped?” ABC News’ Martha Raddatz asked Brazile during an interview on Sunday morning.

“No, they did not stop,” Brazile replied. “They came after us absolutely every day until the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly. We put up the very best cybersecurity… infrastructure to stop them.”

That conflicts with what Obama’s claim at a press conference on Friday that cyber attacks against Democrats ended in September after he warned Putin about the hacking at the G-20 summit in China.

“I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, and there were going to be some serious consequences if he didn’t,” Obama said. “And, in fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process.”

Asked for more details about the discrepancy in Obama’s claim, Brazile offered vague responses.

“Why do you think the president would say that?” Raddatz asked.

“Look, I think the president is absolutely right to call for a federal investigation,” Brazile dodged.

Brazile, who had several controversial emails leaked through the hacks, also avoided questions about whether she was disappointed in Obama for failing to act more aggressively against the hackers.

Obama said on Friday that he is certain that Russian agents carried out the hacks, which mostly targeted the DNC and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. He stopped short of saying whether Putin personally approved the hacks.

Brazile also dodged questions about debate and town hall questions that she leaked to the Clinton campaign during the Democratic primaries.

“As I have said repeatedly, CNN did not provide me with any questions. Nor did you provide me with any questions when I showed up this morning,” Brazile told Raddatz.

Emails from Podesta’s account show that in March, Brazile passed a question to the Clinton campaign that was to be asked at a town hall co-hosted by CNN and TV One the next night. TV One host Roland Martin appears to have been the person behind that leak to Brazile, who was a paid CNN analyst at the time.

Several days before that, Brazile sent a tip to the Clinton campaign that a woman from Flint, Mich. would be asking Clinton a question during a CNN debate about the Flint water crisis. It is still unclear how Brazile found out that information. (RELATED: Who Leaked The CNN Debate Question To Donna Brazile?)

WATCH:

Follow Chuck on Twitter