SHEPARD SMITH (HOST): First from the Fox News deck on this Monday afternoon, the stunning conclusion from all 17 US national intelligence agencies. All of them in lock step that the Russian government did intervene in the US presidential election and is now bringing bipartisan action. The top Republican in the United States Senate -- Republican, mind you --, says it will investigate whether Russian hackers tried to help Donald Trump win the election. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell also said Moscow's meddling cannot be a partisan issue.
[...]
Senator McConnell says “it's hard to believe any Republicans could in any way ever be against reviewing these Russian tactics,” but President-elect Donald Trump has called the CIA's assessment ridiculous. A fact -- a statement he based on nothing. Tweeting today, “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite, and we tried to play the Russia-CIA card? It would be called a conspiracy theory.” “Unless you catch hackers in the act it's very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn't this brought up before the election?”
It was brought up before the election. Over and over and over again. US officials absolutely did say before the election that Russian hackers stole emails from Democratic officials and gave them to the website WikiLeaks. But according to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the CIA has since determined it was all part of an effort to help Donald Trump, not simply to disrupt the election but to help Donald Trump. And 17 national security agencies are in on this assessment.
[...]
[BEGIN VIDEO]
DONALD TRUMP: They have no idea if it's Russia, or China, or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean they have no idea --
CHRIS WALLACE: So then why would the CIA put out the story that the Russians wanted you to win.
TRUMP: I'm not sure they put it out. I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country.
[END VIDEO]
SMITH: That is not true. The national intelligence agencies put this out, and now there's a bipartisan investigation into it, one which Donald Trump is against.
