Conway 'disappointed' in media leaks before intel briefing

A senior member of Donald Trump’s transition team expressed disappointment Friday that contents of the intelligence community’s report regarding Russia’s cyberattacks against American political targets were leaked to the media ahead of the president-elect’s scheduled briefing.

That report, delivered to President Barack Obama earlier this week, details the evidence implicating the Russian government in a series of cyberattacks that targeted high-profile political individuals and institutions, nearly all of them Democrats. Intelligence officials testified on the report Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee and are scheduled to brief Trump on it Friday.


But at least portions of the report were also revealed to The Washington Post, which published details including the celebration of Russian government officials when Trump was elected and that the U.S. government had discerned the identities of individuals who delivered hacked information to websites like WikiLeaks.

“President-elect Donald Trump has great respect [for] the intelligence community. We’re very happy that the top intelligence officials will be here at Trump Tower today to give their own briefing to the president-elect,” incoming counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Friday on “CBS This Morning.” “What's disappointing is having leaks in the media before we actually have a report on the alleged hacking and it's been very confounding to us and certainly to the president-elect why this report if it wasn't prepared until yesterday, why operatives were expelled, why punishment preceded actual conclusions.”

That Russia was to blame for the cyberattacks has been the consensus view of 17 federal intelligence agencies since October, when those agencies first officially named Russia as the culprit. President Obama ordered a review, delivered this week, of Russia’s malicious cyber efforts and last month imposed sanctions on the Kremlin, expelling 35 diplomats and closing two Russian compounds on the East Coast.

But despite the unanimity with which the intelligence community has blamed Russia for the attacks, Trump has been unwilling to concede their assessment. He has argued that it would be impossible to accurately identify the culprit after the fact and that the attacks could have been carried out by Russia or China or “somebody sitting in a bed someplace.” He has objected especially strongly to the assessment of some intelligence agencies that Russia’s actions were specifically intended to help install him as president.

Trump also criticized the media leaks, asking in a tweet on Thursday night, "How did NBC get 'an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented? Who gave them this report and why? Politics!" The NBC report confirmed parts of the Washington Post’s story.

Earlier this week, Trump wrote on Twitter that “the ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” A U.S. official contested Trump’s point, and said that the briefing had always been scheduled for Friday.

And after citing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who told Fox News in an interview that his website’s hacked email source was not a foreign government, in a post to Twitter on Wednesday, Trump wrote on Thursday that “the dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘Intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!”

Friday morning on CBS, Conway blamed the Democratic National Committee, perhaps the most high-profile target of the Russian cyberattacks, for having lax cybersecurity protocols. Repeating a line that she and other Trump transition team members have used often, she said any Russian activity had nothing to do with the outcome of the election, telling the CBS hosts that Russian President “Vladimir Putin did not discourage Hillary Clinton from competing in Wisconsin and Macomb County, Michigan.”

While Trump has promised warmer relations with Russia, praised its strongman president and suggested that he might recognize its annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, Conway challenged the notion that the president-elect would be the preferred candidate of the Russian government.

“It’s really is unfair and actually is unproven and it will be unproven that what Russia did or did not do affected the election results,” she said. “And let's ask ourselves a very simple question. Why would Russia want Donald Trump to win the presidency here? Donald Trump has promised to modernize our nuclear capability. He wants to increase the defense budget and he wants more oil and gas exploration. Why would Russia want any of that? It’ll damage its economy.”