National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster said that evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now “incontrovertible.” McMaster was speaking at a security conference in Munich on Saturday.
Responding to a question from a Russian delegate, McMaster said that “with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now incontrovertible.” He was speaking of Russian interference. McMaster was referring to the announcement yesterday by the FBI’s special counsel Robert Mueller, that thirteen Russian citizens have been indicted for interfering with the U.S. presidential election. Mueller’s indictment said that the Russians engaged in “information warfare” against the U.S.
McMaster said that he would love to work with Russia on advancing cyber security but only when Russia becomes “sincere about curtailing its sophisticated form of espionage.”
Shortly before McMaster spoke, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed the conference, and dismissed the recent developments as noise. “I have no response. You can publish anything, and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying…Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber,” Lavrov said.
President Trump long dismissed the Russian-meddling issue as a hoax. Yesterday he acknowledged the indictments, but attested that the interference had no bearing on the results of the election. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!” the President tweeted.