Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday said President Donald Trump thinks “it probably was Russia” that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s systems.
Trump on Thursday appeared to dismiss the DNC hack as “all a big Dem HOAX!” in a tweet posted early in the morning.
Responding to a question about Trump’s post during an off-camera, audio-only press briefing, Sanders said, “He thinks that it probably was Russia.”
“The President just called it a ‘Dem hoax,'” Yahoo News reporter Hunter Walker pressed. “Does he believe that members of the intelligence community are colluding with the Democrats or did collude with the Democrats?”
“I believe that the reference in the hoax is about the fact that they’re trying to delegitimize his win in the election process and less about the hack itself,” Sanders said.
She estimated that Trump has “said several times now that he believes that Russia was part of it” but said “some of those same members” of the intelligence community who have pointed the finger at Russia “have said that they don’t think it influenced the election.”
“And I think that’s what a lot of this process is about. It’s about trying to make excuses for why Democrats lost,” Sanders said. “And the President I think has been pretty clear on where he stands with that.”
She said Trump created a voter fraud commission, which launched in May and has thus far failed to materialize, in response to concerns about Russian hacking.
“President Trump has made it clear that we have to protect the integrity of the electoral system,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons he’s a strong advocate for voter ID laws and why he’s also put in place an election integrity commission chaired by the vice president.”
Studies have shown that cases of voter fraud are exceedingly rare, and that voter ID laws adversely affect the turnout of minorities, particularly Latino voters, and disproportionately affect turnout among Democrats.
More message discipline from Frump E. Hucklebee.
Nevertheless, there it is:
It’s all about his fragile ego.
Any statement that isn’t a lie is hedged out the wazoo.
And your boss gleefully invited them to do it you f-BEEEEEP BEEPITY BEEEP BEEEEEEP.
See, I’m trying to moderate my language,
Trump on Thursday appeared to dismiss the DNC hack as “all a big Dem HOAX!” in a tweet posted early in the morning.
Appeared?
She said Trump created a voter fraud commission, which launched in May and has thus far failed to materialize, in response to concerns about Russian hacking.
Ummm.