U-turn on Mexico wall

Trump says Mexico will reimburse US for border wall

Washington, Jan. 6: The US has identified the Russian agents who were behind the alleged hacking ahead of the presidential elections won by Donald Trump in November, according to media reports.

The agents, whose names have not been released, allegedly sent stolen Democratic emails to WikiLeaks to try to swing the vote for Mr Trump, CNN reported.

However, Russia has denied any involvement and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said Moscow was not the source.

US spy chiefs were set to confront an openly dismissive Mr Trump on Friday with their evidence of Russian involvement.

The meeting comes amid high tension between the leaders of the US intelligence community and their future boss, who has bridled at any suggestion that Moscow tipped the election in his favor.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday he had “very high” confidence in their findings.

He said that “only Russia’s senior-most officials” could have authorised the operation, in which hackers stole Democratic Party files and emails. Those files were then disseminated via WikiLeaks, embarrassing the party and harming losing candidate Hillary Clinton’s White House effort. U-TURN ON WALL Mr Trump on Friday claimed Mexico will reimburse the US taxpayer for any money spent on building a border wall between the two countries, after it emerged he would approach Congress to foot the bill, in a U-turn from his key election campaign promise.

Mr Trump’s transition team has signaled to congressional Republican leaders that his preference is to fund the $14 billion border wall through the appropriations process as soon as April.