President-elect Trump had a good weekend, with a big New Year’s party at Mar-A-Lago, a bunch of his toadies going on teevee to explain the U.S. government’s sanctions on Russia were really aimed at hurting Donald Trump, and now the exciting announcement that Trump himself knows a lot about the hacking that American spy agencies don’t, because of course he does.
On New Year’s Eve, Trump told reporters it would be really unfair to rush a judgment about the source of the hacking of the DNC, RNC and Clinton campaign (among others), because why would you do that? Besides, does the CIA know as much about computers as he does?
“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,” he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. “So I want them to be sure,” the president-elect said. “I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.”
He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”
When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
The New York Times rather pointedly noted that Mr. Trump’s computer expertise does not extend to using email. Trump went on to say handling sensitive material probably shouldn’t involve computers at all:
“It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way, because I’ll tell you what, no computer is safe,” Mr. Trump said.
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While stock markets were closed for the holiday weekend, futures in Amalgamated Carrier Pigeons, LLC skyrocketed.
Even though Trump says he knows a whole lot of stuff other people don’t, it appears he still plans to follow through with his statement from Thursday that he would meet with intelligence agencies sometime this week; it’s unclear whether that meeting will come before or after the Big Announcement Tuesday or Wednesday. It was also unclear how vigorously Mr. Trump intends to make the universal hand gesture for jerking off whenever a CIA briefer speaks.
It’s worth noting that Trump’s official statement, released in response to the Obama administration’s expulsion of Russian diplomats and sanctions against some of those believed responsible for the hacks, doesn’t mention Russia, hacking, or even the Obama administration’s actions:
Whatever it’s about, though, it’s time to move on to “bigger and better things,” like whatever shiny object has caught Trump’s attention by midweek.
In the meantime, residents of the Trumpiverse have been insisting the real target of Obama’s sanctions is probably Donald Trump; Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway told CNN Thursday she’d heard it from those in the know:
I will tell you that even those who are sympathetic to President Obama on most issues are saying that part of the reason he did this today was to quote “box in” President-elect Trump […] That would be very unfortunate if politics were the motivating factor here. We can’t help but think that’s often true.
You know, Kellyanne, sometimes it’s not all about you. Still, Trump buddy Rudy Giuliani agreed Obama was simply trying to “create more problems for a future president.” He, too doubts the Central Intelligence Agency is all that trustworthy, seeing as how it has been aligned in recent years with known enemy of the United States Barack Obama.
“Here’s what you do: You get your own people to review it,” Giuliani said. “There’s no question that the intelligence that President Obama has been getting has either been incompetent or politicized. I do cybersecurity for a living, and this is prolific, and there should be very strong reactions against anyone who did it. But I would urge President Trump, when he becomes President Trump, to have his own intelligence people do their own report, let’s find out who did it, and let’s bang them back really hard.”
That 400-pound guy on a bed somewhere is never gonna know what hit him.
On Sunday, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on ABC’s This Week he wasn’t sure the Russian hacking was a big enough deal to even warrant much of a reaction:
“I think one of the questions that we have is why the magnitude of this?” Spicer said on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “I mean you look at 35 people being expelled, two sites being closed down, the question is, is that response in proportion to the actions taken? Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t but you have to think about that.”
Heck, it was only a foreign government breaking into computers at both parties’ national committees, the campaign of a presidential candidate, and releasing phished emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair. Why would anyone think that’s worth any action at all in response? It’s not like the Russians had a private email server in their basement, after all. Besides, said Spicer, Donald Trump has saved all the American jobs (which is 5,000 of them):
It would surely be very unfair to mock Mr. Trump for taking credit for a hiring decision that Sprint made before the election, especially when Mr. Spicer insists otherwise. After all, Spicer’s credibility is top notch, since he’s previously cited My Little Pony cartoon character Twilight Sparkle as proof that Melania Trump couldn’t have plagiarized a speech — which Trump staff later admitted was plagiarized.“He speaks with the head of Sprint gets 5,000 jobs moved from abroad. And everyone starts to mock him. Oh those jobs were already announced. They weren’t. The sales jobs had been previously announced,” Spicer said […]
“These jobs were coming from abroad to America. And instead of trying to mock him or undermine him, it’s time that people started giving him credit for actually getting things done,” Spicer said.
Spicer then asked if Hillary Clinton would be “punished” for trying to “influence” the election by campaigning, so we are done with that guy and this post.
