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Intel report cites Putin
Russian leader aimed to ‘harm’ Clinton’s chances
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an operation against the U.S. election, a new report says.
WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an intelligence operation against the U.S. presidential campaign and ultimately sought to help Donald Trump win the White House, according to a new U.S. intelligence report released Friday shortly after the president-elect appeared to dismiss its key findings.
Putin both “aspired to help” Trump in November and to “harm” his rival, Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with leaks of pilfered emails and other covert activities, the report concludes in an expansion of official U.S. accusations against the Kremlin.
The report depicts the Russian operation as unprecedented, saying that an aggressive mix of digital thefts and leaks, fake news and propaganda represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” against a U.S. election campaign.
Moscow’s goals “were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency,” it states. “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for Presidentelect Trump.”
They “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton,” it adds.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies found no evidence that hackers tampered with voting or with counting ballots on Election Day.
But in a new assertion, it says Russian intelligence “obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards,” adding that Russian spies began collecting information on equipment used in U.S. elections in early 2014.
The 14 pages released offer a circumstantial case rather than hard evidence of Putin’s direct involvement, and focus on Russian propaganda efforts. But the full report remains classified, and the public portion does not include the specific intelligence.
The release of a major intelligence assessment marks an escalation in what has become a bare knuckle fight between Trump and the U.S. intelligence community, backed by President Barack Obama, over the president-elect’s repeated derision of their understanding of Russia’s role.
Intelligence officials had planned to declassify the key findings next week after briefing members of Congress. But the declassified summary was rushed out Friday afternoon after Trump had been briefed on the full report — and made clear he was not convinced.
In a statement, Trump conflated the Russian cyberattacks with those of other countries and individuals, and insisted the hacking had “absolutely no effect” on the 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 after he was briefed by four U.S. intelligence chiefs at his office in New York.
Earlier Friday, in an interview with The New York Times, Trump had called the focus on election-related hacking a “political witch hunt” by his adversaries, who he said were embarrassed by their loss.
The growing dispute has become a sore point for Trump’s transition team and a worry for Republicans on Capitol Hill who are convinced of Moscow’s malign role and who fear Trump’s presidency will get off to a shaky start.
House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged the dilemma Friday, noting that Russia “clearly tried to meddle in our political system.”
But he warned Democrats might try to use the intelligence report to undermine Trump’s mandate in the White House.
“We cannot allow partisans to exploit this report in an attempt to delegitimize the president-elect’s victory,” Ryan said.
Democrats were quick to respond.
“I’m appalled the Russian government took the extreme step of interfering with our presidential election, particularly with the goal of tilting the playing field to increase one candidate’s chance of winning,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee.
When it appeared to Moscow that Clinton was likely to win, according to the report, it “focused more on undercutting (her) legitimacy and crippling her presidency from the start.”
Putin “holds a grudge” against Clinton, it noted, adding “he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012.”
Officials working for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, used an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0 and a website DCLeaks.com to release emails, as well as to relay them to WikiLeaks.
Earlier this week, Trump retweeted denials by Julian Assange, the fugitive founder of Wikileaks, that it had gotten the emails from the Russian government or its operatives.
Trump was briefed on the evidence in a meeting with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.