Putin: "Patriotically Minded" Private Russian Hackers Could Have Interfered In U.S. Election

Russian President Vladimir Putin admits “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in U.S. election interference.

Via the New York Times:

Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers “are like artists” who choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.”

“If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions — which are right, from their point of view — to the fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” he added.

His remarks echoed ones by Mr. Trump, who has dismissed accusations of Russian meddling and said that the person responsible for the attack on the Democratic National Committee “could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

The firing of James B. Comey as director of the F.B.I. has led several lawmakers to call for an independent investigator or commission on top of the current investigations into potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

All the same, Mr. Putin stuck firmly to earlier denials that Russian state bodies or employees had been involved, an accusation leveled by United States intelligence agencies. They concluded in January that Mr. Putin himself had directed a Russian “influence campaign” involving cyberattacks and disinformation intended to tilt the November election in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Putin also theorizes that "someone" could be creating a fake trail back to Russia with today's technology.

Riiiiiight.