Trump's chief of staff acknowledges that Russia was behind DNC hacks

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President-elect Donald Trump's incoming chief of staff accepted on Sunday that Russia was behind last year's hacking and leaking of internal emails from top officials at the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, Reince Priebus acknowledged that Trump "accepts the fact that this particular case was entities in Russia," but argued that the DNC should be criticized for not taking cyber security more seriously.

"I think he accepts the findings, Chris," Priebus said of Trump. "But here's the thing that everyone needs to understand. When this whole thing started, it started from the Russians 50 years ago. In other words, this is something that's been going on in our elections for many, many years. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians — it happens, every election period."

He added: "It started way back in 2015 before either nominee of either party was chosen. And it started, and this is declassified, as a spear phishing expedition. It just so happens that the DNC had nearly no defenses on their system. And when they were warned multiple times by the FBI, they didn't respond."

Wallace repeatedly pushed Priebus to clarify his position, asking whether Trump still dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that Russia attempted to tip the scales in Trump's favor.

Priebus said that Trump was "not denying that entities in Russia were behind this particular hacking campaign."

"The primary actor is the foreign entity that's perpetrating the crime to begin with, I'm not denying it," Priebus said.

When asked to specify who the foreign actor was, Priebus responded bluntly.

"Russia," he said.

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