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Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an effort to help Republican Donald Trump’s electoral chances by discrediting Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign, US intelligence agencies said in an assessment on Friday.
Russia’s objectives were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate former secretary of state Ms Clinton, make it harder for her to win and harm her presidency if she did, an unclassified report released by the US’s top intelligence agencies said.
“We assess Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” the report said.
“We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”
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The agencies believe Russian military intelligence used intermediaries such as WikiLeaks and DCLeaks.com to release emails that it had acquired from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and top Democrats as part of the effort.
It said the operation went for “targets associated with both major US political parties”.
The report assessed with “high confidence” that the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, had used those intermediaries to release “US victim data obtained in cyberoperations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks”.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said he did not receive emails stolen from the DNC and top Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta from “a state party”.
However, Mr Assange did not rule out the possibility that he got the material from a third party.
Russian actors were not found to have targeted US systems that are involved in tallying votes, the report said.
The report was produced by the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency.
Russia denies the US government's allegations of hacking during the election campaign.
Briefing
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump, who has developed a rocky relationship with US spy agencies, defended the legitimacy of his election victory after he received a nearly two-hour briefing on their conclusion that Russia had staged cyberattacks during the 2016 campaign.
Ms Clinton won the nationwide popular vote but lost in the electoral college that formally elects the president.
In a statement after the briefing, Mr Trump did not squarely address whether he was told of the agencies’ belief Russia carried out the hacking.
Instead, he said: "Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyberinfrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organisations", including the DNC.
“There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Mr Trump said.
The New York businessman, who is to be inaugurated as president on January 20th, said he would appoint a team to give him a plan within 90 days of taking office on how to prevent cyberattacks, but suggested that he would keep their recommendations secret.
“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” Mr Trump said.
Intelligence officials had first made public their conclusion that the Russian government had directed the cyberattacks in October.
Newspaper interview
In a telephone interview with the New York Times before the briefing, Mr Trump had dismissed the controversy.
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” Mr Trump told the newspaper, referring to the Office of Personnel Management breach in 2014 and 2015.
“How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
Mr Trump’s questioning of the intelligence agencies’ conclusions have not only drawn the ire of Democrats but also fellow Republicans.
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans who took part in a Senate hearing with US spy chiefs on Thursday, have called for further congressional inquiries on the matter.
James Clapper jnr, the director of national intelligence, said at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Mr Trump’s comments were “disparaging” and bad for morale at the nation’s spy agencies.
He said that “our assessment now is even more resolute” about the Russian hacking.
In Friday’s interview, Mr Trump also confronted questions about whether taxpayer funds should be used to begin construction of his promised wall along the southern border.
He said doing so would allow construction to begin quickly, but insisted that he would negotiate with Mexico to reimburse the US for those costs.
On the issue of Russia’s cyber activities, Trump noted that there have been prior successful hackings of the White House and Congress, suggesting it was unfair that those attacks on US institutions have not received the attention that the Russian ones have.
“With all that being said, I don’t want countries to be hacking our country,” Mr Trump said.
“They’ve hacked the White House. They’ve hacked Congress. We’re like the hacking capital of the world.”
‘Political’ motivation
Asked why he thought there was so much attention being given to the Russian cyberattacks, the president-elect said the motivation was political.
“They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan,” Mr Trump said during an eight-minute phone conversation.
“They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this.”
(In fact, Mr Trump won more counties than any Republican presidential candidate since Mr Reagan, according to a PolitiFact analysis, citing data from the Atlas of US Presidential Elections.)
The president-elect also noted the news this week, first reported by BuzzFeed News, that the DNC had refused to give the FBI access to its computer servers after it was hacked.
“The DNC wouldn’t let them see the servers,” Mr Trump said.
“How can you be sure about hacking when you can’t even get to the servers?”
The DNC has previously said the law enforcement agency had not asked to examine the computers.
A senior law enforcement official said the FBI had repeatedly emphasised to the DNC the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data.
The FBI was rebuffed, and had to rely upon a third party – a computer security firm brought in by the DNC – for information.
Reuters/New York Times