WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to identify Russia as almost certainly the culprit in hacking the Democratic National Committee and releasing emails fits his administration's new penchant for openly blaming foreign governments for such break-ins.
Obama traditionally avoids commenting on active FBI investigations, but he told NBC News on Tuesday that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak.
In Moscow on Wednesday, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia would never interfere in another country's election.
"What the motives were in terms of the leaks, all that, I can't say directly," Obama said. "What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin."
Obama said he was basing his assessment on Trump's own comments and the fact that Trump has "gotten pretty favorable coverage back in Russia." He added that the U.S. knows that "Russians hack our systems — not just government systems, but private systems."
WikiLeaks published on its website last week more than 19,000 internal emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee earlier this year. The emails showed DNC staffers actively supporting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton when they were publicly promising to remain neutral during the primary elections between Clinton and rival candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Read Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.