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Obama Vows Retaliation over Russian Hacking; U.S. Intel Analysis: Putin Directed Hacking; U.S. Officials: Russian Cyberhacking still going on. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 16, 2016 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:16]

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. President Obama vowing retaliation against Russia for interfering in the presidential election in the United States, sources now telling CNN the Intelligence Community has concluded Russian leader Vladimir Putin personally signed off on the hacking of the U.S. presidential election and guess this, they say the hacking is still going on, a sophisticated operation with hacking tools like the ones used by the NSA. President Obama, as I said, is promising consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think there's no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will, at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized. Some of it may not be. But Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this because I spoke to him directly about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Russia's message to the White House, prove it. A Russian presidential spokesman says, "The United States should either stop talking or produce some proof." All of this playing out as President Obama gears up for one of his final news conferences and as President- elect Trump continues to brush off the Intelligence Community. We are covering the story from all angles. Let's begin though with CNN national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. She's live at the White House. Hi, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Well, we do have some more information. We know from the president in his "NPR" interview that he gave that warning to President Vladimir Putin in China. That was the G20 summit, they had a side line meeting where he said it was unacceptable and that the United States in fact, knew that Russia was behind the hacking that had influenced to a certain degree the U.S. presidential election. In October was when Intelligence analysts officially and publicly pointed to Russia, the White House saying that it would behave in a proportional response to this and it could be a host of things, Carol. We know there's a certain degree of public and private shaming of Russia as we have seen the president do just in the last couple of weeks. There's also the possibility of economic sanctions or cybersecurity threat of our own. But the president also wants to emphasize here, Carol, that this is not a partisan issue. The hope is here, is that the incoming president, Donald Trump would see it the same way. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It's very important that we do not let the inter-family argument between Americans, the domestic political differences between Democrats and Republicans, obscure the need for us to stand together, figure out what it is that the Russians are interested in doing in terms of influencing our Democratic process, and inoculating ourselves from it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And the president also emphasized, Carol, that this isn't kind of your garden variety type of big power spying on each other espionage. He says it's more like a malicious kind of thing where the Chinese are stealing trade secrets and Russia trying to influence the U.S. elections. So we're going to try to get more information about this. Obviously he will be asked about it at a press conference later this afternoon after 2:00 p.m. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, we will check back, Suzanne Malveaux, reporting live from the White House. Donald Trump's refusal to accept claims that Russia meddled in the election is sparking a gloves-off battle with the White House. Exactly what the administration wanted to avoid. Trump and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest locked in a war of words over whether Trump knew that Russia's hacks were benefiting him, a battle now spilling over onto Trump's home turf. That would be Twitter, CNN political reporter Sara Murray following that part of the story. Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Well, look, President Obama wanted this sort of peaceful, orderly transition of power but a rift is emerging, and it's because of Russia. Now we are seeing the president-elect trading barbs with the White House Press Secretary. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL-ELECT: Although this foolish guy, Josh Earnest, I don't know if he's talking to President Obama. You know, having the right Press Secretary is so important because he is so bad, the way he delivers a message. He can deliver a positive message and it sounds bad.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's just a fact you all have it on tape, that the Republican nominee for president was encouraging Russia to hack his opponent because he believed that that would help his campaign.

(END VIDE CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, for the first time we are hearing from Hillary Clinton and her top allies of what they think Russia's impact was on the election and John Podesta, one of her top aides, wrote a scathing op- ed. I want to read you a portion of it as it relates to the DNC hack. He says when the FBI discovered the Russian attack in September 2015 it failed to send even a single agent to warn Democratic National Committee officials.

Now, despite Podesta's claims, sources are telling CNN that not only did they

[10:05:16] send -- did they have federal investigators warn the DNC, they had them warn senior officials. They warned them multiple times. And in spite of these warnings, the Democratic Party did not take any steps to remedy this situation until months later.

Now, if Donald Trump, the president-elect, is at all concerned about these reports, of Russian meddling in the election or our report that the cyber hacking attempts are continuing, he's certainly not showing it. Instead he's taking to Twitter, to change the subject. He tweeted, "Are we talking about the same cyberattack where it was revealed that the head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?"

This is of course Donald Trump's attempt to change the subject away from Russia's role in the election and turn the glare on the media instead. But in fact, you know, we have moved past the Democratic primary and even past the general election and now the question is, what's Donald Trump going to do when he's governing in the White House and is he going to take these cyberattacking attempts from Russia seriously, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Murray reporting. Thank you so much. And so what exactly, are Intelligence sources saying about Putin's role in the hacking into the DNC and into John Podesta's e-mails? With that side of the story is our justice correspondent Evan Perez. Good morning, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Russian spy agencies, we are told, deployed sophisticated hacking tools, the kind used by the NSA to break into U.S. political organizations in the past year. Officials tell CNN this is part of the reason why Intelligence officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the disinformation operation that targeted mostly the Democratic Party groups and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Julian Assange who heads "WikiLeaks" which published some of these e- mails told Sean Hannity that the Intelligence assessment is all wrong. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN ASSANGE, "WIKILEAKS" FOUNDER: Our source is not the Russian government.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST "THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW": So, in other words, let me be clear, Russia did not give you the Podesta documents or anything from the DNC?

ASSANGE: That's correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: We are told that the investigators haven't found any evidence directly linking these hacks and the disinformation to Putin. But officials believe that because of the nature of this operation, he would have had to give the orders on what to do with the stolen e- mails. In recent weeks, Intelligence Agencies have collected a lot more evidence, including from human sources to back up their assessment.

Now, in the meantime, Carol, the hacking hasn't stopped. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that the FBI is now investigating hacking attempts after the election, targeting Clinton campaign staffers. A campaign official tells CNN that they received security notices as recently as last week, indicating that attempts - there were attempts to get into their private e-mail accounts. Now Carol, despite the fact that Russia -- is expecting a warmer relationship with the United States now that Donald Trump has been elected. Officials tell us that they expect that the Russian hacking attempts are going to continue unabated.

COSTELLO: All right, Evan, stay right there because I want to continue this conversation. I want to bring in now, CNN intelligence and security analyst and former CIA operative Bob Baer and CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance. Welcome to both of you.

So Evan, I just want to like focus on Julian Assange for just a moment more because he's being used by some on the right to bolster Trump's claims that this is all just political. So tell us again why the FBI and the CIA does not believe that Assange is credible.

PEREZ: Well, they have -- they said they've spent, you know, a year looking at this Intelligence and by the way, -- some of this hacking goes back to attempts to hack into the White House, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They have seen the conduct and the type of signatures that these hacking attempts have, and they have been able to trace a lot of this. The NSA and the FBI is working on this for a couple years now. And what they have noticed is the same type of behavior.

So that's one reason why they have -- they say that they have some very high confidence in the fact that they know that the Russians were behind this. But the question is, how did this get from Russian Intelligence into the hands of "WikiLeaks" and "DC Leaks" and these other web sites. That's the question the FBI is still working to answer, frankly.

But the CIA is a little more forward-leaning. They think that they have identified some people who are go-betweens. We don't know exactly what all that evidence entails but we know that in October, the Director of National Intelligence and Homeland Security Department said publicly that they believe that the Russians were behind this and that they provided these e-mails. -- COSTELLO: OK. So Bob, just to clarify, to be clear, there could have been a middleman between the Russian hackers and Julian Assange. And maybe Julian Assange didn't realize where the information was coming from?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Julian Assange should know by now that he hasn't been hacking Russians or any of our enemies. I mean, you look at his whole operation, it's directed against the United States. I just don't believe him. He's not credible. The people at the CIA and National Security Agency have incredible forensic abilities to trace e-mails, to trace

[10:10:16] the origins of these hackings, and the overwhelming consensus is this came out of Russia and one of the outlets was "WikiLeaks". I mean, I'm going to go with the Intelligence Community.

COSTELLO: So Matthew, Russia is saying hey, prove it. We're innocent in all of this. Is that what they're saying essentially?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are saying that. And so is President-elect Trump, of course, saying there's no evidence for this. And they have a point, don't they, because we haven't got anything in terms of concrete proof that we can say look, this is absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt drawing a line between these hacks and the Kremlin. We have a lot of allegations. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence and certainly, Bob is absolutely right to say that it's only those who were seen as critics of the Kremlin, who have been hacked. Nobody who is seen as friendly to the Kremlin, like Donald Trump, was seen as hacked. And of course, there's a powerful motive on the part of the Kremlin as well and part of the Russian security forces.

They didn't want somebody like Hillary Clinton with outspoken anti- Russian views in many cases to take on the White House when they had the option of somebody like Donald Trump, who has expressed very sympathetic views towards Russia's position on various issues around the world, not least Syria. And so, there is a strong motive that Russia would have been attempting to try and put his thumb on the scales as it were in the election. The question we are arguing about is the extent to which they went to try and achieve that goal.

COSTELLO: So Evan, just help our viewers understand why circumstantial evidence may be enough to prove that Russia is behind this.

PEREZ: Well, you know, I think part of the forensic work that's going on right now, the White House wants the Intelligence Community to produce enough information that they can disseminate publicly. They're going to declassify some of the stuff and the Obama administration knows that come January 20th, this is a totally different conversation. This is not something the Trump administration is likely to do.

So we expect that in the next 30 or so days, we are going to see a report that's going to be declassified and provided to members of Congress and some of this will be sent out to the public to provide at least a little bit of more context and a little bit more proof because I think Matthew is pointing out correctly that a lot of this stuff is -- being produced by Intelligence Agencies that are necessarily doing stuff in secret and we don't have, we are not privy to all of that information. I think we expect that in the next 30 or so days we will get a lot more information that will give us a sense of what they are working with.

COSTELLO: So Bob, is it possible as Donald Trump has intimated that there are some within the CIA who are working to delegitimize his election victory?

BAER: Well, he's right in a sense because John Brennan, the director, was very political during the elections which I think was a mistake. You know the people who do the computer stuff, hacking and the rest of it no, they are generally conservative, they are not - you know, they weren't Hillary supporters or activists or the rest of it.

So I agree with Evan, we have to get this information out. And I would say, I would get it out before -- this weekend, at least brief the Electoral College because the Electoral College was established to determine if there was foreign influence in an American election. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. But before they vote on Monday, they should certainly be briefed on this.

COSTELLO: So Bob, you are saying that the CIA should declassify some information because it's important for Americans to know.

BAER: I would go beyond that. If in fact Russia was trying to influence the elections in this country that was an act of war. And I think the American public should know and see the evidence that it was attacked by Russia. I haven't seen the evidence so I can't tell you. But I'm very firm about that.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So Matthew, how are the Russian people reacting to this? Are they sitting back and kind of chuckling?

CHANCE: I don't know. It's an interesting question. Because, I mean, look, on the face of it, Russians in general get most of their news from state television and state television has been very firm in reflecting the Kremlin line is a conduit for the views of the Kremlin which is it's got nothing to do with us, this is made up to make Russia look bad to the incoming Trump administration.

But at the same time, if you scratch the surface of that, I think there's a sort of twisted kind of national pride almost amongst Russians that they are seen as having the power to be able to reach that far and to be able to do something they have never been able to do before, which is influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. I mean, it may or may not be true. I agree with Bob,

[10:15:16] I would like to see some actual hard evidence of what we are going on here, but you know, yeah, I think there's a sort of pride that Russians think that they have been able to do this, whether or not it's true.

COSTELLO: I have to leave it there. Matthew Chance, Bob Baer, Evan Perez, thanks to all of you. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump is firing back at claims that Russia influenced the election that put him in the White House. Will his perspective change when he's in the Oval Office?

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[10:19:03] COSTELLO: President-elect Trump standing firm in his dismissal of Russia's role in the U.S. election, instead he's attacking the White House. So let's talk about that and more. I'm joined by former George W. Bush political director and chairman of the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlapp. He was also a Trump campaign surrogate. Welcome, sir.

MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND CHAIRMAN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION: Thank you, Carol. Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. So Matt, U.S. Intelligence Agencies say not only did Russia hack into the DNC, but did so at Putin's orders. So why isn't Donald Trump calling Putin up on the phone and asking him what's up with this, because they appear to have a very warm relationship?

SCHLAPP: Well, first of all, we don't really know how those conversations are going both at the principal level and the staff level. And I think, look, I was a Trump supporter, Carol. You can imagine after seeing this effort to try to influence this vote of the electors which I don't think I have ever seen in my lifetime, the fact that people want to get to these electors and brief them and talk to them before they do the will of the people from their state who they are supposed to represent in this vote. It all looks so political. And I think it's unfortunate that we are politicizing all these questions. And look, I think having a very clear explanation of the facts that we know on the ground from these

[10:20:16] different agencies from the FBI, from the CIA, from the other important agencies, I think would be very important. I think instead what we're seeing is a lot of people talking about what they've heard people say inside these agencies or reporters saying I talked to sources -

COSTELLO: No, not exactly. Not exactly because earlier this month, the CIA did tell a top group of U.S. senators that Russia's hacks were aimed at helping Trump. This is what Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is a Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Wolf Blitzer. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, (D) VICE CHAIR SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We have had a number of briefings. They go back to the midsummer. They involved the leadership of the Intelligence Committees. I have been on the committee for 15 years. I have been chair for six. Rank vice chair for two. I have never seen a more specific top level briefing with statements of high confidence when questions were asked. It's clear to me that this is a very serious situation, and I don't want to see the relationship with Russia get worse. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So Matt, it's not just sources out there saying stuff and spreading rumors. Dianne Feinstein can't say exactly what the Intelligence Services told her because as you well know, she cannot because of the role in which she serves for the U.S. government. So it's more than that. It's very serious. And high powered Republicans, by the way, also agree with her, many of them.

SCHLAPP: Well, all I'm saying, Carol, is that the politics are swirled throughout this. And if this is as serious as Mr. Brennan and others are saying, I don't just want to hear from Dianne Feinstein even though I have respect for her. Congress is a bipartisan -

COSTELLO: What about Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell or John McCain?

SCHLAPP: Yes, let me finish my answer. -- Congress is a bipartisan institution. And I think the committees of jurisdiction should of course ask all the tough questions. And of course the American voters should know exactly what did or did not happen. And I also think we have to look at something else, Carol, which I think should be part of the reporting as well, which is President Obama's administration has left us very vulnerable. Every time the president comes out and blames Vladimir Putin and others in the Russian government, I think we also have to look at ourselves. This is where espionage goes in the 21st century. And America has to be able to protect itself. --

COSTELLO: So wait a minute. - So how is -- President Obama is vowing retaliation for what Russia did in the -- election.

SCHLAPP: It already happened. Why didn't he stop it? Why don't we have the ability to protect our electoral process? He's making these charges. It's actually he's pointing to his own administration's failings to be able to stop. In this case, they say it's the Russians or whoever it is, why can't we stop them? Why can't we have the firewalls? If this is so serious, why didn't they do anything to protect us?

COSTELLO: Well, the president said that he was in a dilemma, right, because there were allegations from Donald Trump himself, saying that the election was rigged at the time that the U.S. government was finding out what Russia was doing. -- So you were in the strange place, right, you don't want to -- you don't want to make people less confident about our electoral process by making things public. You want to keep it private. And that's why President Obama talked privately with Vladimir Putin and didn't make what he said to Putin public.

SCHLAPP: I think the problem with that strategy, Carol. Once again, I'm a Trump supporter. The problem with that strategy now, it looks like this is a lot of sour grapes. The only reason Hillary Clinton could have lost is because Vladimir Putin somehow put his thumb on the scale to help Donald Trump win. And for those of us who supported Donald Trump, we find that incredibly offensive. The reason why Hillary Clinton is not the president today probably has a lot to do with the fact that - COSTELLO: But see, no Democratic lawmaker is saying that Mr. Trump should not be President of the United States.

SCHLAPP: Yes, they are.

COSTELLO: No, they're not. No, they are not. They are not.

SCHLAPP: Carol - let's be clear here.

COSTELLO: -- Some Democrats within the Electoral College may be saying that. But it's not lawmakers and it's not the President of the United States.

SCHLAPP: -- I didn't accuse the President of the United States. What I'm saying is that the politics are swirled throughout this. Why is there such a strategy to say that these electors should be briefed on what potentially Mr. Brennan has found on his findings but the American voter and the American people, why can't we hear exactly what his charges are? Why can't we hear it in a way where it is bipartisan? Why can't we hear it in a way where it will build confidence in the fact that we have a strategy to take care of this problem instead of it looking like we are looking at the election that was about a month ago and we're saying something must have happened because there's no way she could have lost. And I don't think that's going to help this country get into the next days. -

COSTELLO: Well, if indeed the Intelligence sources are saying that the hacking is continuing, don't you think it ought to stop?

SCHLAPP: We have a cybersecurity emergency in this country.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

SCHLAPP: This is the way espionage is going. Our friends, our allies,

[10:25:16] our enemies, terrorists, this is a huge problem and I think the Obama administration has failed us on it. I don't think it's just about what happened -

COSTELLO: Well, -- shouldn't Mr. Trump do better, then. Shouldn't he --

SCHLAPP: -- I guarantee you something, Carol. He's not -- by the way, he hasn't been sworn in yet. It's important to keep reminding, we have one president and it's Barack Obama.

COSTELLO: Come on. Come on. Are you forgetting Carrier in Indiana? He wasn't president then, either. But he acted as a president. So that's not a good argument.

SCHLAPP: OK. -- But do you think that he can solve cybersecurity without any constitutional powers. I don't think he can. But I do know this. I know that they think this is a serious problem. I know they're going to get on top of this problem. This is the way espionage looks in the 21st century. We have to protect American interests and Trump's foreign policy will focus on this and -- every way in which we have to push back on our enemies. And sometimes it's our allies as well who do things that are illegal. Remember - hacking is illegal.

COSTELLO: So wait, Matt. -- You're saying that Mr. Trump's tune might change once he becomes President of the United States?

SCHLAPP: No. I'm not saying that at all.

COSTELLO: No? OK.

SCHLAPP: I'm saying that he understands and the people around him understand that cybersecurity is a massively important issue and the Obama administration has not protected us. They have not taken the steps they should have to protect us. And look, they want to talk about Russia in the election. I want to talk about cybersecurity and how it undermines our national security. There are so many serious -

COSTELLO: And you don't think Russia's hacking into political entities within the United States is a serious problem?

SCHLAPP: No. I think anybody who hacks into the United States -

COSTELLO: And is also part of our cybersecurity emergency?

SCHLAPP: It's a crime and I want to know on this particular question, and I've watched all your reporting and I think on this particular question, it is a very dangerous game for the Intelligence Community to not just come clean to the American voter and tell them what they know. They are playing a game of leaks. They are playing a game of selective briefing and it looks partisan to those of us who support Mr. Trump. And there are a lot of us across the country. They want to know, if they have something, why don't you just tell us?

COSTELLO: OK. Hopefully they will very soon.

SCHLAPP: Hopefully so.

COSTELLO: I know. I'm with you. Matt Schlapp, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

SCHLAPP: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, an escape from the horrors in Syria denied for thousands as evacuations are again halted.

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