John Podesta: Russia 'Clearly Intervened'

Also, the FBI contacted him once about his emails—2 days after Wikileaks dropped them
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 18, 2016 11:27 AM CST
John Podesta: Russia 'Clearly Intervened'
In this Oct. 5, 2016 file photo, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta speaks to media outside Clinton's home in Washington.   (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

John Podesta continued his assault on the FBI on Sunday, telling Meet the Press that he only heard from the bureau once about his hacked emails—and that was two days after WikiLeaks started dropping them. The timeline, per Podesta: On Oct. 7, the controversial Access Hollywood tape depicting Donald Trump dropped; "One hour later, WikiLeaks starts dropping my emails into the public," Podesta says. "One could say that those things might not have been a coincidence. Two days later, the FBI contacted me, and the first thing the agent said to me was, 'I don't know if you're aware but your email account might have been hacked.' I said, yes, I was aware of that." That, he says, "was the last time I'd heard from the FBI."

“I think the Russians clearly intervened in the election and I think now that we know both the CIA and the FBI agree the Russians intervened to help Trump and Vladimir Putin was personally involved with that," Podesta continued, per Politico and Newsday. "It was distorted by the Russian intervention. A foreign adversary directly intervened into our democratic institution and tried to tilt the election to Donald Trump." Podesta contends that while "the Russians were trying to elect a lapdog," it's unclear whether Trump himself knew what was going on, but that "I think the electors have the right to know what the answers are." (More John Podesta stories.)

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