The head of the CIA says that Russia has for decades tried to undermine democracy in the United States
However, Michael Pompeo stressed that he had no evidence of the involvement of the Russian leadership to hacker attacks in the United States before the election.
NEW YORK, June 25. /TASS/. The Director of the Central intelligence Agency (CIA) Michael Pompeo sees nothing extraordinary in Moscow attributed to attempts to interfere in the election campaign in the United States in 2016. The appropriate point of view he outlined in published on Saturday an interview with broadcaster MSNBC.
“The intelligence community have said that the Russians interfered in the elections, God knows what an original way,” — said the head of the CIA.
They (the Russians) did this for a very long time, the Russians decades trying to undermine American democracy.Michael Paniagua CIA
Pompeo argued, negatively answering the question whether he had evidence of the involvement of the Russian leadership to hacker attacks in the United States before the election.
“In a sense, this is not news, but definitely is more focuses on our ability to figure out how to stop them”, — said the head of the intelligence services.
Earlier, us lawmakers announced the beginning of the investigation committed during the presidential campaign of cyber attacks against political organizations in the United States, the responsibility for which Washington is trying to impose on Moscow. These charges were one of the main pretexts for the introduction in December of the last year of sanctions, which touched on some Russian companies, FSB and Central administrative Board (GU, a former GRU) of the General staff of the armed forces. In addition, the U.S. government sent 35 Russian diplomats and announced the closure of two owned by Russian diplomatic villas in the States of new York and Maryland.
Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in the cyber attacks. Commenting on these sanctions, the press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called them aggression.