Every expectation...

Pompeo: 'I have every expectation' Russia will meddle in 2018 midterms

By CRISTIANO LIMA

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said he fully expects Russia to seek to interfere with the 2018 midterm elections as they did in 2016.

"I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that," Pompeo said when asked whether he anticipated a Russian influence campaign later this year during an interview with BBC Monday.

He added: “But I am confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election — that we’ll push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great.”

Pompeo and other intelligence officials have acknowledged attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential campaign, despite refutations from the White House. President Donald Trump has called reports of attempts by Russia to interfere with the campaign "fake news" and the federal and congressional probes into potential ties to the Trump campaign a "witch hunt."

Pressed on whether Trump's stance on Russian meddling efforts forced him and other intelligence officials to "walk a fine line" on the subject, Pompeo said he and the CIA never shied away from spreading the truth.

"I don't do fine lines. I do the truth. We deliver nearly every day personally to the president the most exquisite truth that we know from the CIA," Pompeo said. "Whatever the facts may be, we deliver them unvarnished as accurately and forcefully we can."

Pompeo also cautioned that China could also pose a cyber threat in the upcoming midterms.

“We can watch very focused efforts to steal American information, to infiltrate the United States with spies, with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America,” he said.