Opponents of President-elect Donald Trump are helping Vladimir Putin achieve his election hacking goals, Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo said at his confirmation hearing for CIA director before the Senate Thursday.
“I have no doubt that the discourse that’s been taking place is something that Vladimir Putin would look at and say, wow, that was among the objectives that I had, to sow doubt among the American political community, to suggest somehow that American democracy was not unique,” Pompeo said in response to a question from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. “I believe it is fundamentally unique and special around the world. It shouldn’t surprise any of us at all that the leadership inside of Russia views this as something that might well redound to their benefit.” (RELATED: Who’s The Russian Stooge Now?)
Rubio had asked Pompeo whether he believes Russia is pleased with the national conversation following Trump’s win, including ongoing efforts to question the validity of the results. The intelligence community revealed recently it has concluded one of Putin’s primary meddling goals was to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process.
“In your judgment, as you see the state of American politics and the political discourse — a president-elect who has questioned at times the judgment of our intelligence agencies, opponents to the president-elect who continuously question the legitimacy of his election, the shameful leak in the media regarding unsubstantiated information designed to smear the president-elect, the fact that Russia and Vladimir Putin have become a dominant theme in political coverage in this country for the better part of three months if not longer — as you look at all of that, in your personal opinion, is Vladimir Putin and the Russians looking at all this and saying, ‘we’ve done a really good job of creating chaos, division, instability, in the American political process?”
“Yes, sir,” Pompeo replied.
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