It is "distressing" to hear President Donald Trump casting questions on who was responsible for hacking activities during the 2016 campaign, Rep. Adam Schiff said Thursday.
"Our intelligence community is quite emphatic and I think with ample evidence that there is no question about this, that this was not only Russia, but Russia acting on the orders of Vladimir Putin, the man the president is about to meet," the California Democrat said told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell" show. "For the president of the United States to essentially toe the Kremlin line this no one knows for sure who is responsible for the hacking, it doesn't put America first at all."
On Wednesday during a press conference in Poland, Trump commented that it's likely that Russia meddled in the election, but "nobody knows for sure" if it was the only country interfering.
"This represents a complete capitulation to the Kremlin's point of view," Schiff told Mitchell, and it goes against the United States' national interests.
There are no intelligence agencies that dispute the conclusions that have been reached about Russian involvement, he continued, so Trump's comment was not based on any evidence.
"For him also to go on and disparage the intelligence community because, again, he brought up, 'well, the intelligence community got Iraq's WMDs wrong, how can we trust them on the Russian hack?'" said Schiff. "This further undermines not only his credibility, but that of our own intelligence agencies."
But in the same breath, Schiff continued, Trump talked about North Korea, based on what the intelligence community is reporting.
"Should there come a day where we need to take action, based on what North Korea or Iran does, the the president is going to have to rely on our intelligence agencies and ask the rest of the world to rely on them," said Schiff. "To impeach them in this way makes his own future success that much more in doubt."
Meanwhile, Schiff said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin will realize that Trump "lacks the courage to stand up to him," which will embolden the Kremlin to engage in further election hacks.
"If the president is not going to be the leader of the free world and champion human rights and democratic governance, who is?" said Schiff. "There is nothing the Kremlin would like to see more than a president who will settle for a grip and a grin, and walk away saying that he had this fabulous meeting with the Kremlin autocrat."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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