While it is highly likely the Russian government was behind the hacking of Democrats' emails recently released by WikiLeaks, they are not trying to influence election outcomes as much as they want to rattle us, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden told Newsmax TV.
"I don't think the Russians are trying to pick a winner here," Hayden told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. "I think even they recognize what they're doing creates unpredictable results. I think they're just trying to mess with our heads."
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But he said it is possible to oppose Russia hacking the emails, while also being troubled by their content, which show how Democrats colluded against Sen. Bernie Sanders' White House bid, and how they worked to spin Clinton's use of a private email server and other paid Wall Street speeches.
"I'm not quite panicked about this," Hayden said. "We've gotten many districts, many states, many systems, and so the ability to create a catastrophic failure, I think, is really quite low. And so I think I do have confidence in the electoral process, in the election, if there's no doubt the Russians are trying to mess with the process."
When asked whether he believes President Barack Obama's emails were hacked as well, Hayden said, "Those emails were transiting the internet, not a government intranet, and if it's transiting the internet for intelligence services, game on."
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