Trump Downplays Huge Hack, Floats China as Possible Culprit

Justin Sink, Bloomberg News

U.S. President Donald Trump walks before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020. Trump will attend the 121st Army-Navy Football Game at the United States Military Academy in West Point. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of a massive cyber-attack targeting agencies across the U.S. government and suggested China, not Russia, may have been responsible.

In doing so in a pair of tweets on Saturday, the president contradicted assessments from senior officials within his own administration who’ve blamed Russia for the intrusion of at least half a dozen federal agencies -- including comments Friday night from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.

“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality,” Trump tweeted. It was his first public comment on the hack first reported on Dec. 13.

“I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!)”

Trump went on to suggest without evidence that there may also have been a “hit” on the nation’s voting machines, in his latest bid to cast doubt on his loss in November’s presidential election.

The president tagged Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in his tweet, underscoring his intention to contradict the assessment of administration officials who have blamed Russia for the intrusion.

Pompeo on Friday described the hack as “a very significant effort” and said the U.S. could “say pretty clearly that it was the Russians engaged in this activity.”

“There was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of U.S. government systems, and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well,” Pompeo told radio host Mark Levin.

Hackers’ Months-long Head Start Hamstrings Probe of U.S. Breach

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, led by Trump ally Ratcliffe, also issued a statement on Wednesday describing the incident as “significant.”

“This is a developing situation, and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government,” the DNI said in the statement.

A wider range of government agencies and large corporations have been impacted by the hack, which installed what is known as a backdoor in widely-used software from Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. that allowed hackers access to computer networks.

Russia-Linked SolarWinds Hack Snags Widening List of Victims

U.S. government agencies known to have been targeted included the State, Treasury, Homeland Security, Energy and Commerce departments. Microsoft Corp. said it had identified more than 40 customers targeted by the hackers.

President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday released a statement saying he would not “sit idly by” in response to the attack.

“I want to be clear: My administration will make cybersecurity a top priority at every level of government — and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office,” Biden said.

(Updates with background from 11th paragraph.)