Hacking? What hacking?
Trump stands by claims that Russia did not meddle in the US election, despite a new report that points the finger of blame at Vladimir Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a hidden campaign to influence America’s presidential election in favour of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, United States intelligence agencies have declared, in the government’s first formal allegation supporting sensational claims that Trump and his supporters have staunchly resisted.
The intelligence report released yesterday, an unclassified version of a more detailed classified account given earlier to Trump, the White House and congressional leaders, withheld the government’s evidence to back up its assertions.
Trump, in a brief interview, said he had ‘‘learned a lot’’ from his discussions with intelligence officials, but declined to say whether he accepted their assertion that Russia had meddled in the election on his behalf.
‘‘It was a really great meeting, I really like those people a lot,’’ said Trump, who has challenged the American intelligence community since winning the election. ‘‘I learned a lot, and I think they did also.’’
Trump would not detail what evidence he was presented with, saying only that he learned ‘‘a lot of confidential things’’. Because he is not yet president, he is legally constrained from revealing classified information.
In an earlier written statement, Trump said it was clear that Russian email hacking did not deliver him the presidency.
The unclassified version of the intelligence report was the most detailed public account to date of Russian efforts to interfere with the US political process, with actions that included hacking the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid ‘‘trolls’’ to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said.
There was no suggestion that Russia affected vote counting or tampered with voting machines.
President Barack Obama requested the report last month, and wanted it completed before inauguration day.
The report, for the first time, explicitly tied Putin to the hackings, called it the ‘‘boldest effort yet’’ to influence a US election, and said the Russian government provided emails to WikiLeaks – something the website’s founder, Julian Assange, has repeatedly denied.
The intelligence agencies also said Russia would continue to try to influence future events in the US and worldwide, particularly among America’s allies.
Since Election Day, the intelligence agencies said, Russia had launched a ‘‘spear-fishing’’ campaign to try to trick people into revealing their email passwords, targeting US government employees and think tanks that specialise in national security, defence and foreign policy.
The report lacked details about how the US learned what it said it knows, such as any intercepted conversations or electronic messages among Russian leaders, including Putin, or about specific hacking techniques or digital tools the US may have traced back to Russia during its investigations.
The unclassified report said the Russian effort was both political and personal.
‘‘Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency,’’ it said.
‘‘We further assess [that] Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for intended to bolster the intelligence findings against pushback from the president-elect.
Trump has been dismissive of the intelligence agencies’ claims of Russia’s involvement for months.
Just hours before he was briefed, Trump dismissed the assessment and told The New York Times that the focus on Russia’s involvement was a ‘‘political witch hunt’’ by adversaries who were embarrassed that they lost the election.
After finally seeing the intelligence behind the claims of the outgoing Obama administration, Trump released a one-page statement that did not address whether Russia sought to meddle.
Instead, he said, ‘‘there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election’’.
Trump acknowledged in his statement that ‘‘Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people’’ were consistently trying to hack US networks, including the Democratic National Committee’s.
He said, as did the intelligence report, that ‘‘there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines’’.
Trump said that as president, he would appoint a team to develop a plan to ‘‘aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks’’.
As Trump met in New York with intelligence officials for his briefing about Russia’s campaign, the US Congress tallied the Electoral College votes, officially confirming Trump’s victory.
The US Department of Homeland Security yesterday designated US election infrastructure as critical, widening the options the government has to protect voting machines from cyber attacks.
Elevating election systems to critical infrastructure puts them on par with other sectors eligible to receive prioritised cyber security assistance from the DHS, including communication and transportation systems, the banking industry and the energy grid.