Trump trusts Putin more than CIA
STATES: Donald Trump’s unprecedented feud with the CIA escalated yesterday after the agency concluded in a topsecret report that Russia had intervened in the US presidential election to help the billionaire win.
The president-elect lambasted America’s top spies, who he will rely on for intelligence briefings in the White House, highlighting their humiliating failure in Iraq.
A spokesman for Trump said: ‘‘These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. ’’The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest victories in history. It’s now time to move on and make America great again.’’
The CIA report concluded that hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s email system,
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and the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, were carried out by Russian cyber experts with the specific intent of helping Trump reach the White House.
US officials had previously viewed the hacking as an attempt to undermine the electoral process generally.
The CIA found that the Republican National Committee had also been hacked but information from its email system was not released.
Democratic emails were passed on to Wikileaks leading to embarrassing revelations for Clinton’s campaign.
A high-ranking US official said: ‘‘We now have high confidence that [Russians] hacked the Democrats and Republicans and conspicuously released no Republican documents.
‘‘That’s a major clue to their intent. If all they wanted to do was discredit our political system why publicise the failings of just one party, especially when you have a target like Trump?’’
Another official told the Washington Post: ‘‘It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected, That’s the consensus view.’’
Phil Mudd, a former CIA analyst, said Trump’s comments would cause anger within the agency.
He said: ‘‘I would be disturbed if I was a CIA officer. I think this is really toxic. There are people there who were involved in Iraq so they will take this personally.’’
Earlier this week Trump denied suggestions that Russia helped him. ’’I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they interfered. That became a laughing point not a talking point,’’ he said.
But spies gave a briefing to US senators in a secure room on Capitol Hill last week in which they outlined how they had identified specific Russian officials they believed were behind the operation.
Those operatives were said to be ‘‘one step’’ removed from the Kremlin.
CIA analysts told the politicians it was ‘‘quite clear’’ the aim of the Kremlin had been to secure Trump’s election. although the Russians were surprised that he had succeeded.
The Kremlin has denied trying to influence the US election. The CIA declined to comment publicly on the latest revelations. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has denied working with Russia.
President Barack Obama has ordered a full review of hacking during the election and wants intelligence agencies to deliver a report before he leaves the White House on Jan 20.
Officials said the hacking in the US was part a wider campaign by Russia to promote extreme candidates in other countries with a similar operation expected ahead of the German election next year.
Throughout the US election, Trump praised Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and suggested America should have a better relationship with him. Telegraph Group