Huckabee: ‘Russia didn’t affect this election’

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a longtime supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, says any meddling Russia did in the United States’ presidential election did not affect the outcome.

“Let’s just be clear — Russia didn’t affect this election,” Huckabee said Friday on Fox Business Network.

“They still try to put forward this narrative that somehow [Russian President Vladimir] Putin affected the outcome of this election,” Huckabee added of the Obama administration. “But he didn’t. Nobody’s been able to prove anything like that.”

The Obama administration blames Russia for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other party groups ahead of last month’s vote. Reports from the FBI and CIA recently revealed that the agencies believe Russia interfered specifically to help elect Trump.

{mosads}But Huckabee said the Democrats made it all too easy to hack their emails.

“Do we not remember how it happened?” he asked of the breaches. “Part of it is [Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton put her private server in her bathroom — that was put there illegally.”

“And the other part was [Clinton campaign chairman] John Podesta gave up his password stupidly to a hacker,” added Huckabee.

“I mean, shouldn’t we be blaming dumb Democrats as much as someone who tried [to hack]? We fail to remember that’s how they got hacked.”

Intelligence agencies have never claimed that Clinton’s private email server was hacked. Emails hacked from Podesta were published by WikiLeaks in the weeks leading up Election Day.

Huckabee added the U.S. should pause before casting judgment on Russia’s hacking operations.

“Does anybody listening to us believe the U.S. isn’t attempting to hack the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians and anybody else that we’re afraid of?” he asked. “We’re acting so high and mighty.”

“I’m sure that we’re doing everything we can in our own intelligence operations to try to tap into every foreign government that we can find a hole in,” the two-time GOP presidential candidate added.

The Obama administration on Thursday announced retaliatory measures against Russia for a hacking campaign aimed at influencing the presidential race.

Trump has denied Russian involvement in his White House win, meanwhile, portraying it as an attack on his victory’s legitimacy.