LF: Nikki Haley: ‘Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections’

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said everyone knows that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections, as well as other elections around the world, despite President Trump's refusal to say they did.

"Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections," Haley told CNN's Dana Bash in a pre-taped interview for "State of the Union."

Haley's comments come after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump brought up the issue of election hacking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

However, Trump has been hesitant to say publicly that Russia meddled in the election, saying other countries could have been involved, and that "nobody really knows for sure."

"Everybody knows that they're not just meddling in the United States' election," Haley said. "They're doing this across multiple continents, and they're doing this in a way that they're trying to cause chaos within the countries."

"And it's not just going to be us saying this. I think you're going to hear other leaders come out and say, cut it out, we're not going to put up with it," she continued.

When pressed on Trump's comments by Bash, Haley said the president still confronted the Russian president. In a separate CBS News appearance, she also pointed to the ongoing FBI and congressional probes into the issue as evidence that the Russians will face consequences.

“President Trump still knows that they meddled," she told CBS News' John Dickerson in a pre-taped interview for "Face the Nation." "President Putin knows that they meddled, but he is never going to admit to it. And that’s all that happened."

Putin claimed on Saturday he and Trump were in agreement that Russia was not involved.

To me, it would be real news if the Russians (Soviets) did not meddle in an American election.

It's almost unthinkable that we would not meddle in their elections, among dozens of other countries.

Around the world and outside the American media bubble, they must think that we've gone insane over realizing that [gasp] Russians meddle in everyone's elections. And so do Americans.

Hack, influence or meddle? What do you actually think they did in the 2016 election and did it warrant sanctions given that -- as you say -- everyone meddles in everyone's elections?

Keep in mind, both Putin and Assange are on record denying the Russian government's involvement. And I've seen zero definitive proof so far from our side that they did.

Like a burglar, the Russian bear is always sniffing around, looking for some easy prey. This is the historical character of the Russians in the tsarist, Soviet, and post-communist era.

Tsars and commisars and dictators come and go but the fundamental character of the Russian state remains quite Russian.

John Podesta used the same Gmail account for years so the email address would be widely known to the Russians and anyone else. And he used the password "password". This is the second-most common password in use, as established by studies. Any competent password dictionary for hackers (where they create a dictionary of commonly used passwords to crack accounts) would crack Podesta's in a hurry. As it turned out, Podesta got hacked because he clicked a link in a phishing email to change his Gmail password (after his security tech okayed it) and was redirected to a fake lookalike server. That's how they got his password in the (alleged) known hack of the Podesta email account.

However, given the extreme weakness of this password, you have to assume that every country with any technical means, ally or enemy, had already cracked it and downloaded copies of over a decade of emails he had up on Gmail.

If you're going to use "password" as your password, you really can't blame others when you get hacked. It is so stupid that you are entirely to blame for it.

That's it in a nutshell. And from that we get, "The Russian government hacked the 2016 Presidential election".

Brings to mind the old saying (Ben Franklin?) "Never get into an argument with a man that buys his ink by the barrel"

Well, apparently. I can't believe we've talked so long and so much about a puny nothingburger of a story.

I do think that Vlad and the Russkies were looking for some way to discredit or delegitimize the (supposedly) inevitable Hitlery victory, like with Trump refusing to concede, claims of election fraud, etc. And I think the Russians were as surprised as Hitlery, Trump, libmedia, and both political parties when Trump pulled it out on election night in the three northern Midwestern states. Hell, Trump had a concession speech written but no victory speech at all. That's why they retreated to Trump Tower around 10pm, because they started to think they might actually need a victory speech after all.

Vlad wanted to troll on Hitlery's win, the same way she did in his 2012 election. Vlad wanted payback for her election meddling in Russia.