WASHINGTON — the Senate Committee on armed forces Thursday will provide a briefing for its members to learn more about the response of the Obama administration in alleged Russian interference in the elections in the US in 2016 and harassment of American diplomats.
Committee Chairman Senator John McCain on Wednesday called Russia’s intervention an “act of war”.
It is expected that the hearings will testify, members of the intelligence community, including Director of national intelligence James Clapper.
“If you’re trying to destroy the foundations of democracy, you destroy the country, McCain told reporters on Capitol hill. And, by the way, there are different gradations of acts of war. I’m not saying it was a nuclear attack. I’m just saying that when you attack the fundamental structure of the country, and what they’re doing, is an act of war”.
Another Senate Committee on foreign relations will hold a closed meeting on this issue.
Last week, President Barack Obama retaliated against Moscow, imposing sanctions against leading Russian intelligence services, which the US accused of interfering in the presidential campaign.
The administration has also sent 35 Russian diplomats in response to Moscow’s actions in which she sees the harassment of American diplomats.
Two days before the intelligence briefing President-elect of Donald trump on Wednesday once again questioned the fact that Russia interfered in the presidential election with the help of hacker attacks and theft of confidential information that was selectively disclosed before the Americans came to the polls.
Starting Tuesday trump has published several tweets with sarcastic remarks about the CIA, FBI and other agencies, suggesting that they have still no proof that Russia broke into the computer systems of the Democratic party and has transferred documents to WikiLeaks.
“Briefing “intelligence” of so-called “Russian hackers” postponed until Friday. Probably need more time to build arguments. Very strange!” — wrote trump.
Then on Wednesday, after the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, appearing on the Fox News channel, said that the Russian government is not passed on to WikiLeaks documents of the Democratic party, trump wrote: “Julian Assange says 14-year-old could hack Podesta. Why is the national Committee of the Democratic party was so careless?”.
Trump was referring to the thousands of emails and documents that hackers stole from the computers of the National Committee of the Democratic party, and which were published by WikiLeaks several weeks before the presidential election on 8 November.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, known for his criticism of trump, denounced the elected President because he trusts the declarations of Assange.
“Assange is known for subversive action against the United States, wrote Graham on Twitter. — I don’t think any American should trust any words of Julian Assange”.
The representative of the Federal government, told “Voice of America” on Wednesday that the intelligence community has completed the investigation of potential foreign intervention in the elections in the United States.
The official also said that President Barack Obama will be informed about the results of the investigation on Thursday. Through the day the same briefing will be held for trump.
