Adam Schiff Blasts Trump For Getting Played By Putin As Russia Hacks U.S. Nuclear Agency

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 12:25 pm

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff – chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – said on Thursday that Vladimir Putin is playing Donald Trump “like a fiddle” after it was revealed that hackers linked to Russia breached a U.S. nuclear weapons agency.

As Bloomberg reported on Thursday, “The U.S. nuclear weapons agency and at least three states were hacked as part of a suspected Russian cyber-attack that struck a number of federal government agencies.”

Politico added, “The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, officials directly familiar with the matter said.”

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

Rep. Schiff said that Trump is the worst person to be leading the country in the midst of a serious Russian cyber attack on the United States.

“Putin understands Donald Trump very well. He plays him like a fiddle,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “We have not had a deterrent because Donald Trump has been so sycophantic toward Vladimir Putin.”

Video:

Rep. Schiff said:

Putin understands Donald Trump very well. He plays him like a fiddle. And one of the things he understands … is if he can somehow tie this hack to their hack of the democratic institutions and the leaking of documents that helped elect Donald Trump and suggest it’s all part of the same hoax, that none of it happened, he can really appeal to Donald Trump where he lives. And this may be why Donald Trump has remained silent. Now I can’t confirm what the attribution is here. I can say that I think the administration ought to make public attribution. That’s part of establishing a deterrent. It will need to go beyond that and impose sanctions. I don’t have a lot of expectation Donald Trump is going to do that, particularly if the public reports are accurate and there are Russian actors behind this. Trump has shown no willingness to confront Putin. I wouldn’t say that he has deliberately set down our cyber guard because we have good people at the agencies that are really trying to do their best. But we have had one very fundamental weakness, and that is we have not had a deterrent because Donald Trump has been so sycophantic toward Vladimir Putin.

The country is in crisis – and Donald Trump is silent

The United States is in the mist of a raging public health crisis that appears to be getting worse and more deadly with each passing day. On Wednesday, the U.S. saw more than 3,600 new COVID deaths – another record. Trump has remained silent.

It was also reported Thursday that the number of jobless claims totaled 885,000 last week – the highest number reported in more than three months. Trump has remained silent on that front as well.

And now, as Russia again targets America, Trump is remaining silent and allowing Putin to get away with it.

It’s abundantly clear that Donald Trump has completely checked out since Joe Biden decisively defeated him in last month’s presidential election. What’s not so clear is why he is waiting until Jan. 20, 2021 to leave a job he is so clearly uninterested in doing.

Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.