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Donald Trump came out of his intelligence briefing on Friday and issued a statement that was a blatant, obvious, easily checked lie. We had an article about this yesterday at LGF, and here’s Rachel Maddow making the same points: the report released by the Director of National Intelligence does not say there was “absolutely no effect” on the presidential election.

And Donald Trump is continuing the lies today on Twitter:

Gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place.The Republican National Committee had strong defense!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

False. The report states clearly that the RNC was hacked, but Russia simply didn’t release their stolen data, because their objective was to harm the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

False. As explained above, the report states:

We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.

It’s also misleading for Trump to say “voting machines not touched.” That statement is not in the report at all. James Clapper stated a few days ago that they had “no evidence” voting machines were tampered with, but that’s obviously not the same as Trump’s categorical denial.

I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re about to inaugurate a president who’s a frighteningly insecure, appallingly ignorant, pathologically dishonest egomaniacal blowhard with ties to the farthest of the far right, as a result of an election that was clearly influenced by a hostile foreign power.