Russia challenges US to prove campaign hacking claims or shut up

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 8:58 AM ET, Fri December 16, 2016

Story highlights

Dmitry Peskov said US accusations of hacking "look unseemly" without proof
US intelligence agencies have pinned blame on Russia for election-related hacking

(CNN)The United States must either stop accusing Russia of meddling in its elections or prove it, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "indecent" of the United States to "groundlessly" accuse Russia of intervention in the US election campaign, Russian state news agency Tass reported.

"They should either stop talking about that or produce some proof at last. Otherwise it all begins to look unseemly," Peskov reportedly said about the latest accusations that Russia was responsible for hacker attacks.

President Barack Obama on Thursday vowed retaliatory action against Russia in the light of allegations that it meddled in the US presidential election campaign.

US intelligence agencies in October pinned blame on Russia for election-related hacking. At the time, the White House vowed a "proportional response" to the cyberactivity, though declined to preview what that response might entail.

US President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the US intelligence community's assessment, however, in comments Sunday.
He suggested that there was no proof Russia had hacked the election, saying the snooping in Democratic Party servers and emails of campaign staffers for Hillary Clinton could have been done by China or even someone sitting in New Jersey.

Gloves-off White House creates rift between Obama, Trump teams

A US official familiar with the election-related hacking told CNN Thursday that the operation was carried out with sophisticated hacking tools, suggesting that Putin was involved.

The source said while Putin's "fingerprints" were not on the hacking, "the nature of the operation was such that this had to be approved by top levels of the Russian government."

Russian cyberhacking activity has continued largely unabated since the election, including against US political organizations, US officials briefed on the investigation told CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/16/europe...claims-peskov/