US President Donald Trump, in his first comments about a widespread data breach across the US government, on Saturday downplayed the cyber espionage campaign and questioned whether Russia was to blame as alleged by his own top diplomat. 

"The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality," Trump said on Twitter on Saturday. "Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!)."

Trump's assertion that China may be behind the hacking spree, which has so far affected more than a half dozen federal agencies including the Commerce and Treasury Departments, runs counter to comments by his own secretary of State and multiple lawmakers briefed on the matter.

"We can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday in an interview. 

A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA Moscow station chief, said the Trump administration needed to explain quickly why Pompeo blamed Russia, while the president cast doubt on that assessment.

He noted that Pompeo served as CIA director before becoming the top US diplomat, and he has "an extremely sophisticated understanding of national security. How is it that he attributed the attack to Russia and the president did not?"