John Bolton, the man leading the way for Trump’s next Deputy Secretary of State, is casting doubt on the CIA’s assessment that Russia hacked in the United States election system with the sole purpose of electing Donald Trump. It should be noted that Russia has already admitted to being in touch with the Trump campaign during the election.
In an interview Sunday, Bolton told Fox News’ Eric Shawn, “It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation.”
Bolton reasoned that Russia would be too sophisticated to leave evidence of its hacking. “If you think the Russians did this, why did they leave fingerprints?” he asked.
Though Bolton didn’t elaborate on the term “false flag,” he seemed to be suggesting that someone in the Obama administration or the intelligence agencies could have been attempting to falsely lead the public into believing Russia was to blame for the hacking.
Shawn followed up by asking, “Are you actually accusing someone here in the administration or in the intelligence community of trying to throw something?”
Bolton was not specific: “We just don’t know,” he replied. “But I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree.”