Podesta On 12 Indicted Russians: “We Just Found Some Witches”

Former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta weighed in on Friday’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking offenses during the 2016 presidential election.

“Donald Trump likes to describe this as a witch hunt,” Podesta told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “Well, we just found some witches, and they were indicted.”

“I think this is something that people knew that happened all along, that underlying all of this, crimes were committed, and that’s why the Mueller investigation has been so important and why it needs to be continued in an unfettered manner.”

John Podesta responds to new indictments of 12 Russian nationals for alleged effort to hack DNC, Hillary Clinton’s campaign:

“Donald Trump likes to describe this as a witch hunt—well, we just found some witches.” https://t.co/BHK5sr6LRC pic.twitter.com/iM4foV6bou

— ABC News (@ABC) July 13, 2018

We would note that after more than two years of counterintelligence investigations none of these witches include Trump, members of the Trump campaign, or any Americans whatsoever. 

Podesta’s personal Gmail account was hacked in March 2016 after he fell victim to a phishing scam, while Julian Assange told Fox News last January that “Podesta gave out that his password was the word ‘password’.”

On Friday, Podesta said he couldn’t say whether or not the hack was responsible for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 election – though Friday’s indictment explicitly states that the hacking did not alter the outcome of the race. 

“When an election is so close, it’s hard to put your finger on any one particular issue, but clearly this had some impact,” Podesta said. 

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg‘s Jennifer Jacobs – the White House has no plans to cancel the upcoming summit between President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin, with press secretary Sarah Sanders exclaiming “IT’S ON.” 

BREAKING: White House has no plans to cancel the Putin meeting.

“IT’S ON,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders says.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 13, 2018