Trump again shows 'reluctance' to criticize Russia after suggesting China may have been behind cyberattack

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Al Drago/Getty Images)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said the "wiser" course for President Trump would be to refrain from commenting on the alleged Russian cyberattack which targeted several U.S. federal agencies and companies. But the president didn't completely follow that advice Saturday, when he expressed his views on the matter over Twitter.

Trump broke with the consensus by suggesting that China, not Russia, may have been the perpetrator, and that the urge to blame Russia stems from the media's fixation on Moscow as an antagonist. He didn't outright accuse Beijing or dismiss the possibility of the Kremlin's involvement, but the ambiguity of his comments is a departure from U.S. intelligence agencies and Pompeo himself, who said Russia was "pretty clearly" behind the incident.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.