adminWashington – President Barack Obama vowed on Friday to send a “clear message” to Russia for trying to sway the US election, while calling on Donald Trump and Republicans to put national security before politics.
Obama all but accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of personally ordering an audacious cyber hack that many Democrats believe gravely wounded Hillary Clinton in a closely-fought election.
The US intelligence community has concluded that a hack-and-release of the Democratic Party emails was designed to put Trump – a political neophyte who has praised Putin – into the Oval Office.
But with tensions rising between the world’s two pre-eminent nuclear powers and US political anger near boiling point after Trump’s shock election, Obama sought to exude calm while promising a measured response.
Assuring Americans that the ballot itself was not rigged, he promised to “send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us, because we can do stuff to you”.
Noting that “not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin,” Obama said he had personally told the former KGB officer when they met in September to “cut it out”. “In fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process,” he told journalists before heading for his Christmas vacation in Hawaii. – News24
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