Trump adviser: ‘Possibility’ Trump playing media on hacking revelation

A senior adviser to Donald Trump said Monday that the president-elect might be playing the media with some of his rhetoric about Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey, who has been advising Trump on national security since September, said during an interview on CNN that Trump was “an expert at this kind of weaving around and attracting everybody’s attention.”

“You’re saying he’s playing us, in effect?” CNN’s Jim Sciutto pressed.

“There’s a possibility that he is, a little bit,” Woolsey responded.

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“Why not? He’s not interfering with anything. He’s not talking about anything classified,” Woolsey added.

“This is a behavioral mode that he has perfected. He has a point, which is that it is entirely possible to have various definitions of hacking.”

Trump, who has dismissed an assessment from intelligence agencies linking Russia to the hacking of Democratic groups before the election, told reporters Saturday that he knows “things that other people don’t know” about Russia’s cyber activity.

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer earlier Monday tamped down expectations that Trump would reveal new details about alleged Russian hacking during the U.S. presidential election in the coming days.

“It’s not a question of necessarily revealing,” Spicer said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“He’s going to talk about his conclusions and where he thinks things stand. He’s not going to reveal anything that was privileged or was shared with him classified. I think he can share with people his conclusions of the report and his understanding of the situation and make sure people understand there’s a lot of questions out there.”