On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report saying it and other US intelligence agencies had a high degree of confidence that Russia meddled in the US election.
"A lot of people close to the Clinton team and in several think tanks… that have often supported her [use such rhetoric]. It is very often used as a way of covering up a much more hawkish, interventionist approach, where they are trying to have the much more tough stance against various groups, countries, individuals that they view as their adversaries," Page told the RT broadcaster, speaking about the possibility of foreign hacking activities' influence on the US policy.
He added that Clinton's supporters often used the "hawkish" rhetoric as a smokescreen to cover their activities and ideas and had even begun to say that Russia had made efforts to "push" Trump to power in order to use the last "remaining hope" to discredit the changes the president-elect was expected to implement.
"You know it is really a way of just pushing forward any last remaining hope that they can have to discredit some of the possible changes that are going to be coming or could potentially come forward over the years to come," Page said.
After receiving an intelligence briefing on the report, Trump said the election outcome had not been affected. US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan also suggested that the assessment should not be used by partisans to delegitimize Trump's presidency.
