Susan Rice commented on recent assertions by Vladimir Putin denying any meddling in the U.S. election.
Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to deny that Russia participated in any state-sponsored activities designed to sway the election outcome in the U.S.
Responding to Putin's recent assertions, former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice said during a Sunday appearance on ABC's 'This Week,' "frankly he's lying."
Rice added, "The reality is, as all of our intelligence agencies have come together to affirm with high confidence, the Russian government, at the highest levels, was behind the very unprecedented effort to meddle in our 2016 presidential election."
She continued, "And we need to understand exactly how and why that happened and whether or not there's any evidence to suggest that there were those on the American side who facilitated that meddling. "
While denying state-sponsored interference in the U.S. election, the Associated Press reports, Putin did recently suggest that Russian citizens could, theoretically, have done so, noting, “If they have patriotic leanings, they may try to add their contribution to the fight against those who speak badly about Russia."
Putin also said, “I can imagine that some do it deliberately, staging a chain of attacks in such a way as to cast Russia as the origin of such an attack. Modern technologies allow that to be done quite easily."
He made similar comments during an interview with NBC News.
The media outlet reports, "Putin again denied that Russia interfered in last year's U.S. election, joking to NBC News' Megyn Kelly on Friday that even her 'underage daughter' could have been behind the hacking."
