Nancy Pelosi says she witnessed "stunning disclosure" in intel briefing on hacking
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she and other members of leadership were briefed Friday on Russian hacking in the election and she called it a “stunning disclosure.”
Speaking to reporters at her weekly press conference, the California Democrat said House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as the leaders of the Intelligence Committees, received a “very interesting presentation” Friday.
“It was really quite a stunning disclosure,” Pelosi said.
The briefing appeared to be focused on the report prepared by the CIA, FBI and NSA on Russian hacking and interference that was presented to President Obama on Thursday. While Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that an unclassified version would be released to the public early next week, Pelosi said some of the report will be released to the public on Friday.
“When you see this report, you will see with confidence how the intelligence community has identified what we have seen,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi’s comments came just hours before President-elect Donald Trump was to be briefed by Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director James Brennan and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on the report at Trump Tower in New York.
In an interview with The New York Times Friday morning, however, Mr. Trump called the focus on cyber attacks from Russia during the election “a political witch hunt.”
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” he said about the breach at the Office of Personnel Management. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
“With all that being said, I don’t want countries to be hacking our country,” Mr. Trump said. “They’ve hacked the White House. They’ve hacked Congress. We’re like the hacking capital of the world.”
CBS News’ Alan He contributed to this report.
