WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange belittled the Director of National Intelligence ( DNI) report claiming that Russia sought to influence the result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Assange minced no words and described it as not looking like an intelligence report at all by lacking the credible structure of a presidential daily brief. Assange also called the DNI report " quite embarrassing".
The 25-page intelligence report, prepared on the urgent orders of President Obama, blamed Russia for the breach of Democratic officials' emails led by Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. The report claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched cyber operations as part of "influence campaign."
The report said intel officials assess with "high confidence" that Russian military officials did relay materials including from DNC and senior Democratic officials
to WikiLeaks.
Assange reiterated in his audio-only Periscope Q & A session his declaration that their source for the leaked DNC emails was not a member of the government or of " state parties", and definitely did not come from the Russian government.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, pointed out that U.S. intelligence officials failed to produce fresh pieces of evidence that would actually prove Russia's involvement or complicity.
Peskov panned American intel officials' "unfounded accusations" for sounding at a rather "amateurishly emotional level" that doesn't fit what is supposedly highly professional work of high-class special services. The Russian spokesperson also questioned what data those officers had to arrive at such "unfounded accusations".
There are some discrepancies detected between the respective assessment of different intelligence agencies involved in the probe from CIA, FBI, and NSA. Political observers and analysts also described the report as underwhelming and unlikely to change the American public's mind on many things including the result of the election. It also does not help the cause of those claiming Russian interference that the report admitted that the released emails were authentic and did not contain any evidence of forgery.
Assange said that at the end of the day, the most important consideration was that the American public should not be denied of that kind of relevant information revealed through the leaked emails.
