Personally ordered attacks as payback to Hill: intel report
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an unprecedented cyber campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton and boost Donald Trump during the presidential election, an intelligence report claimed Friday.
The 25-page report prepared by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency said Russia has consistently tried to disrupt “the US-led liberal democratic order” but the recent hacking “demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations.”
No evidence was presented to back up that conclusion, with officials saying that information had to remain secret.
“This document’s conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign,” the report said.
Among the findings was that Putin had harbored a years-long grudge against Clinton after she slammed his autocratic rule while she was secretary of state.
“Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime . . . and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him,” the report said.
Putin preferred Trump, it said, because he had spoken about improving relations with Russia and would be a partner in battling Islamic terrorism.
“Putin publicly indicated a preference for Presidentelect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine,” it read.
“Moscow also saw the election of President-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” the report said, using another name for ISIS.
The Russians and their spy agency GRU orchestrated cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and Clinton aide John Podesta and fed hacked e-mails to WikiLeaks, DC Leaks and a Russian-linked hacker named Guccifer, the report said.
Russia’s state-sponsored English-language TV network RT also repeatedly slammed Clinton and praised Trump in its programming, the report said.
Trump has repeatedly scoffed at the allegations of Russian involvement and earlier Friday called the probe a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
But after meeting with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey at Trump Tower Friday, he acknowledged Russian cyberattacks — but insisted there was no evidence Russia influenced the outcome of the presidential election.
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in a statement.
He did not reveal what was said in the briefing or whether he agreed with the report — which did not consider whether Russia’s actions affected the election’s outcome.
“I had a constructive meeting and conversation with the leaders of the Intelligence Community. I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation,” he said.
“There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful,” he said.
“Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks. I will appoint a team to give me a plan,” Trump said.