Here we go. President-elect Donald Trump apparently tuned in to FOX News Tuesday night for Sean Hannity\u2019s sit down with Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, who appears to be emerging as a surprising ally of some conservatives in Washington.<\/p>\n
Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that Assange backs up his own suspicions over the U.S. government and a variety of independent cybersecurity firms\u2019 assessment that Russia was behind the hacks on the Democratic National Congress, writing, \u201cJulian Assange said \u2018a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta\u2019 \u2013 why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!\u201d<\/p>\n
More tweets, more doubts.<\/strong><\/p>\n The tweet comes after Trump\u2019s missive late Tuesday that the intel briefing he was scheduled to receive on the hacks had been moved to later this week: \u201cThe \u201cIntelligence\u201d briefing on so-called \u201cRussian hacking\u201d was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!\u201d<\/p>\n But senior administration officials tell the New York Times that no meeting had been scheduled for Tuesday. Trump had previously said he might reveal \u201cthings that other people don\u2019t know\u201d about the hacking, but has provided no evidence to back up his doubts about the intel community\u2019s conclusions.<\/p>\n His latest 140-character assaults on U.S. government agencies comes as F.B.I. director, James Comey, and director of national intelligence, James Clapper were preparing to travel to New York on Friday to brief him about their findings. \u201cThe decision by Mr. Comey and Mr. Clapper to brief Mr. Trump in person appears to be an effort to show him how seriously they take their conclusions that the Russian government was behind the hacking of Democratic officials before the election,\u201d the Times notes.<\/p>\n Not helping<\/strong><\/p>\n Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) fanned the flames of the budding war between the President-elect and the intelligence community, telling MSNBC Tuesday night that Trump is being \u201creally dumb\u201d for picking a fight with the intel pros, warning they \u201chave six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.\u201d<\/p>\n To the Hill.<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s pick to become the next defense secretary, retired Marine General James Mattis, is making the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, and had some interesting things to say to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat from Connecticut on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Blumenthal hinted that Mattis might not share the same views as Trump when it comes to the F-35 program, and the lawmaker said he was \u201cencouraged by his clear commitment\u201d to the \u201cimportant role of the F-35 program in sustaining and enhancing it.\u201d Trump has tweeted about the program, demanding that Lockheed Martin bring the costs down while asking Boeing \u201cto price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet,\u201d an older jet that would be hugely expensive to bring up to speed with the F-35.<\/p>\n The two also talked about cyber attacks, \u201cparticularly by the Russians,\u201d Blumenthal said, but wouldn\u2019t provide any details. The senator did say that he believes Mattis \u201ccould provide a sense of balance and stability\u201d in the Trump administration.<\/p>\n More meets.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mattis also sat down with Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, and has planned visits with two other panel members Wednesday and Thursday: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). The New York senator is the only Democrat who has come out against Mattis, saying in a statement that she will not vote for an exception to the rule of civilian control of the military, as it is \u201ca fundamental principle of American democracy.\u201d The Senate would have to change existing law to allow Mattis to serve, since he has not been out of the military for the required seven years.<\/p>\n So long.<\/strong><\/p>\n On Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will sit down with the Pentagon\u2019s global Combatant Commanders and Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Cabinet Room for the final time of their administration, followed by a trip out to Joint Base Myers-Henderson Hall, where they\u2019ll participate in the Armed Forces Full Honor Review Farewell Ceremony.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>foreignpolicy.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here we go. President-elect Donald Trump apparently tuned in to FOX News Tuesday night for Sean Hannity\u2019s sit down with Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, who appears to be emerging as a surprising ally of some conservatives in Washington. Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that Assange backs up his own suspicions over the U.S. government and a variety of independent cybersecurity firms\u2019… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}