President-elect Donald Trump reacted on Thursday to President Barack Obama’s new sanctions against Russian officials, saying he believed the United States needed to “move on to bigger and better things”.
“Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation,” the President-elect said in a statement quoted by The Washington Post.
The comments came after the Obama administration announced that it is expelling 35 Russian diplomats and shutting down two Russian compounds in the United States in response to allegations that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in order to interfere with Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency.
The diplomats who are to be kicked out of the U.S. work in the Russian embassy in Washington and the Russian consulate in San Francisco.
They and their families will be given 72 hours to leave the country. The U.S. declared the diplomats "persona non-grata" for acting in a "manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status."
Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that Trump could reverse Obama's executive order and allow Russian intelligence officials back into the United States once he takes office.
The sanctions follow a report by the CIA which concluded that Russia hacked senior Clinton aides’ email accounts so as to intervene in the election on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump.
In the wake of the CIA report, Obama promised to retaliate against Russia for "meddling in America's election process”.
Trump has rejected the claims that his election win was enabled by Russian hackers, saying that Democrats bitter with the results of the election were inventing excuses for their defeat.