Ten members of the Electoral College have demanded a briefing on alleged Russian hacking before they formally cast their votes to elect Donald Trump on Dec. 19.
The electors—nine Democrats, including House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, and one Republican, Chris Suprun, who recently has been called to step down after announcing he would not vote for Trump—cited media reports claiming the CIA may have proof Russia hacked systems in the United States to sway the election in Trump’s favor. The electors wrote an open letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for direct confirmation.
In the letter, the electors said they “require to know from the intelligence community whether there are ongoing investigations into ties between Donald Trump, his campaign or associates, and Russian government interference in the election, the scope of those investigations, how far those investigations may have reached, and who was involved in those investigations.”
“We further require a briefing on all investigative findings, as these matters directly impact the core factors in our deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to serve as President of the United States,” the members of the Electoral College across six states as well as Washinton, D.C., wrote in the letter, posted on social media website Medium.
Trump, his confidants, and other Republicans have criticized the CIA report suggesting Russian interference, describing it as political in nature.
“We’re surrounded by election deniers,” Trump’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, reported CBS News.
“It’s always something other than Hillary Clinton’s fault as to why she lost and we’re not going to accept that,” Conway added. “We’re not going to allow people to insinuate and insult the president-elect and the tremendous victory he had.”
Conway said that Trump does trust the CIA and has “tremendous respect” for the U.S. intelligence community. “What he believes is we should have evidence, not these off-the-record, unsourced quotes and leaks from a House Intelligence Committee where now you have the FBI arguing with the CIA,” she said.
On Monday, Trump tweeted more on the CIA reports.
“Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” he wrote. “Unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”
