“There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate," Dick Cheney said. | Getty Cheney: Russian meddling possibly 'an act of war'

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Russia’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election could be "considered an act of war.”

Cheney, who served as President George W. Bush’s No. 2, spoke about Russia at The Economic Times’ Global Business Summit on Monday.


“There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate, but there’s no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic, fundamental democratic processes,” he said. “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”

The U.S. intelligence community has identified Russia as the culprit behind cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the attacks to aid Trump in his campaign against Clinton.

Trump’s White House has repeatedly seized on reports from U.S. officials that Russians didn’t directly impact the vote count as evidence that Russia’s meddling didn’t shape the outcome of Trump’s election.

Trump and his associates’ potential ties to Russia also are under investigation by the FBI and House and Senate Intelligence Committees. A number of those associates, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, have expressed a willingness to testify about their ties to Russia.

While Trump has spoken warmly of Putin, Cheney warned that the Russian autocrat has operated “in ways that none of his predecessors have done for the last 40 years.”

“I would not underestimate the weight that we as Americans assign to the Russian attempts to interfere with our internal political processes,” Cheney said.