The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said Sunday he believed the Obama administration should have taken bolder action in response to intelligence reports about Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election.
“The American people needed to know, ” Schiff said.
Schiff and Feinstein issued a public statement in September 2016 accusing Russia of attempting to influence the election.
President Donald Trump has seized on a recent report from The Washington Post saying Obama knew as early as last August about the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in a cyber-campaign to disrupt and discredit the election in an effort to help Trump win.
“Obama administration official said they ‘choked’ when it came to acting on Russian meddling of election. They didn’t want to hurt Hillary?” Trump tweeted Saturday.
In the interview, Schiff said Trump shouldn’t criticize the Obama administration’s actions.
“For Donald Trump, who openly egged on the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails and celebrated every release of these stolen documents, to criticize Obama now is a bit like someone knowingly receiving stolen property blaming the police for not stopping the theft, ” Schiff said.
