“Are we talking about the same cyberattack where it was revealed that head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?” Trump writes. | AP Photo Trump renews complaints of Russian hacking reports

President-elect Donald Trump once again complained about reports of Russian cyberattacks against the U.S. election that he won last month, recalling that one of those hacking efforts yielded an email showing Hillary Clinton had received a Democratic primary debate question in advance.

“Are we talking about the same cyberattack where it was revealed that head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?” Trump wrote on Twitter just after 6 a.m. Friday morning.


Trump and his team have complained loudly in recent days about the renewed scrutiny that cyberattacks from Russia against American political targets have received. The president-elect has refused to concede the assessment of all 17 federal intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the attack and he has taken particular exception to the reported assessment of the CIA that those Russian efforts were specifically intended to benefit his candidacy and help install him as the next president.

It is the fourth time this week that Trump has posted to his Twitter account about the hacking incident, the president-elect’s preferred means of conveying a message directly to his followers. In a two tweet outburst on Monday, Trump wrote “can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” and added “unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn't this brought up before election?”

Then, on Thursday, Trump again asked why the issue of Russian cyberattacks had resurfaced, writing “if Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?”

Of course, that Russia was launching cyberattacks targeting the U.S. election process was made public by the U.S. intelligence community in early October, a fact pointed out in White House press briefings by press secretary Josh Earnest on Wednesday and Thursday. Earnest pointed out that Trump had encouraged Russia to continue its hacking efforts and look for emails deleted from Clinton’s private server, a remark that the real estate mogul later said was intended to be sarcastic.

“Mr. Trump obviously knew that Russia was engaged in malicious cyber activity that was helping him and hurting Secretary Clinton’s campaign,” Earnest said at Thursday’s briefing. “It was obvious to everyone who was paying attention, including the gentleman whose thumbs authored that tweet, that the impact of that malicious activity benefited the Trump campaign and hurt the Clinton campaign.”

Trump on Thursday night lashed out at Earnest, calling him foolish and bad at his job.

"He can deliver a positive message and it sounds bad," Trump said during a rally in Pennsylvania.