Pierluigi Paganini July 15, 2018

A few hours before the upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the US President said he might ask the extradition to the US of the 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of being involved in attacks against the 2016 presidential election.

Ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki on Monday, the US President announced that he might ask the extradition of the 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of attempting to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Trump will meet with Putin in Finland, despite calls from Democratic lawmakers to cancel the summit in light of indictments.

Journalist asked Trump whether he would request the extradition to the US of the Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign, and the reply was clear

“Well, I might.” Trump said

“I hadn’t thought of that. But I certainly, I’ll be asking about it, but again, this was during the Obama administration. They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration.”

Trump confirmed that Russian hackers targeted the 2016 Presidential election, but denied that they supported his campaign, he added that his Republican Party had also been hit by Russian hackers.

“I think the DNC (Democratic National Committee) should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked,” he said. “They had bad defenses and they were able to be hacked. But I heard they were trying to hack the Republicans too. But — and this may be wrong — but they had much stronger defenses.”

The President blamed the DNC for poor security of its systems.

The attempts of hacking of “old emails” of the Republican National Committee was first reported by the CNN in January last year when it quoted the then-FBI Director James Comey.

Comey told a Senate panel that “old emails” of the Republican National Committee had been the target of hacking, but the material was never publicly released. Comey confirmed that there was no evidence the current RNC or the Trump campaign had been successfully hacked.

Trump admitted that he was going to meet Putin with “low expectations.”

“I’m not going with high expectations,” he added.

“I think it’s a good thing to meet,” he said. “I believe that having a meeting with Chairman Kim was a good thing. I think having meetings with the president of China was a very good thing.”

“I believe it’s really good. So having meetings with Russia, China, North Korea, I believe in it. Nothing bad is going to come out of it, and maybe some good will come out.”

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Trump-Putin meeting, hacking)

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