Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that the intelligence community has reached “stunning” conclusions about Russian hacking leading up to the November elections.
The House Democratic leader did not reveal details, which are classified until intelligence officials release a partial version of the report to the public, a move that could come as early as Friday afternoon.
But after being briefed Friday morning, Pelosi said there’s no doubt the hacking harmed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s White House bid and gave a leg up to President-elect Donald Trump.
“It was really quite a stunning disclosure,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol.
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Pelosi lamented that much of the report will be withheld from both the public and most members of Congress. Friday’s briefing involved only eight lawmakers: The top leaders from both chambers, and the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.
“Later in the day, some of the report will be released to the public. I would hope that we could get more,” Pelosi said. “I know we have to respect sources and methods. But I think that even Congress has the right to know more than they want to disclose to Congress, beyond the Gang of Eight.”
“So this will be interesting in terms of what the disclosure is, of this report,” she added. “But suffice to say, it’s stunning in its conclusions, and you’ll see some of it.”
Pelosi used Friday’s briefing to take a shot at Trump, who has rejected the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic Party organizations last year.
Many of the documents stolen in those hacks were subsequently made public online through a series of leaks, including by WikiLeaks, beginning in the summer and leading right up to the Nov. 8 elections.
“They are now briefing the president-elect, a person who has tried to discredit, disparage and dismantle the existing intelligence community, because he doesn’t like some of the things they were putting forward,” she said.
Pelosi also lambasted the news media, accusing reporters of focusing too intently on the content of the leaked emails, rather than the source and purpose of the hacking.
“I really say to you, my friends in the press, with all the respect for the guardians of the First Amendment that you are, that you were accomplices in this. Because every single day you reported that there was an email that was embarrassing to the Clinton [campaign] without saying, ‘We know this because of disruption by a foreign power into our electoral system,'” she said.
“You knew that. You knew it was the Russians.”
Pelosi said the leaks hurt Clinton’s campaign, but she stopped short of saying it cost the Democratic nominee the election.
“Did it affect the Clinton campaign? Of course it did,” she said. “Would it have come out differently? I don’t know, because there are many factors in an election. But you read the report and then we’ll talk again about what the purpose [was].”
Pelosi is pushing legislation, sponsored by Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), to create an independent and external panel to investigate the foreign hacking — a strategy that GOP leaders in both chambers have rejected outright.