‘The Russia/CIA card’: Trump doubles down on dismissal of Kremlin influencing election

President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his dismissal of the Central Intelligence Agency’s reported assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a “card” being played by the Democrats to undercut his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton.

“Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card,” Trump tweeted on Monday. “It would be called conspiracy theory!”

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the CIA believes Russia’s hacking of Democratic National Committee emails was done to help Trump win the White House.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Trump called the assessment “ridiculous.”

“Hacking is very interesting,” Trump said. “Once they hack, if you don’t catch them in the act you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. I mean, they have no idea.”

The president-elect reiterated that point on Twitter while tossing in a falsehood.

“Unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking,” Trump tweeted. “Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”

It was. During one of the general election debates in September, Trump even dismissed the Clinton campaign’s claim that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee.

“I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying, ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’ but I don’t — maybe it was,” Trump said. “It could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?”

In October, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, concluded that Russian hacking of American “political organizations” like the DNC was an attempt to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system. According to the Post’s report Friday, the CIA now says it is now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal.

In his Fox interview, Trump said he believes that the Post report is part of an effort by the Democrats to deflect responsibility for their defeat.

“Every week it’s another excuse. We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College,” Trump said. “I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country.” Trump collected 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232. Clinton, though, leads Trump in the popular vote by more than 2.6 million, with absentee votes still being counted in several states, including California.

On Sunday, several Republican senators joined Democrats calling for a full-scale investigation, saying in a joint statement that the CIA’s report of Russia’s efforts in the election “should alarm every American.”

On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Arizona Sen. John McCain urged Trump to accept the CIA’s assessment.

“The facts are there,” he said.

Trump’s comments have also irked the intelligence community.

“It is concerning that intelligence on Russian actions related to the U.S. election is being dismissed out of hand as false or politically partisan,” another U.S. intelligence official told ABC News. “The inclination to ignore such intelligence and impugn the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials is contrary to all that is sacred to national security officials who work day and night to protect this country.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said, “The president-elect doesn’t want interference in our politics, but we also don’t want politics to interfere with our intelligence.”

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who is reportedly lined up to be Trump’s deputy secretary of state, even suggested that hacks committed during the election could have been “a false flag” operation carried out by the Obama administration.

“It is not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag,” Bolton said on Fox News. “So the question has to be asked, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary’s server, but their dumb intelligence service against the election?”

Bolton added: “I believe that the intelligence community has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree.”