The CIA has concluded that
Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win
the White House, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral
system, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
U.S. intelligence agencies
have assessed that as the 2016 presidential campaign drew on, Russian
government officials devoted increasing attention to assisting Donald Trump's
effort to win the election, the U.S. official familiar with the finding told
Reuters on Friday night on condition of anonymity.
Citing U.S. officials briefed
on the matter, the Washington Post reported on Friday that intelligence
agencies had identified individuals with connections to the Russian government
who provided thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee
and others, including the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign,
to WikiLeaks.
U.S. President Barack Obama
ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention
into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on Jan. 20,
the White House said on Friday.
As summer turned to fall,
Russian hackers turned almost all their attention to the Democrats. Virtually
all the emails they released publicly were potentially damaging to Clinton and
the Democrats, the official told Reuters.
"That was a major clue to
their intent," the official said. "If all they wanted to do was discredit
our political system, why publicize the failings of just one party, especially
when you have a target like Trump?"
A second official familiar
with the report said the intelligence analysts' conclusion about Russia's
motives does not mean the intelligence community believes that Moscow's efforts
altered or significantly affected the outcome of the election.
Russian officials have denied
all accusations of interference in the U.S. election.
A CIA spokeswoman said the
agency had no comment on the matter.
The hacked emails passed to
WikiLeaks were a regular source of embarrassment to the Clinton campaign during
the race for the presidency.
U.S. intelligence analysts
have assessed "with high confidence" that at some point in the
extended presidential campaign Russian President Vladimir Putin's government
had decided to try to bolster Trump's chances of winning.
The Russians appear to have concluded
that Trump had a shot at winning and that he would be much friendlier to Russia
than Clinton would be, especially on issues such as maintaining economic
sanctions and imposing additional ones, the official said.
Moscow is launching a similar
effort to influence the next German election, following an escalating campaign
to promote far-right and nationalist political parties and individuals in
Europe that began more than a decade ago, the official said.
In both cases, said the official, Putin's campaigns in
both Europe and the United States are intended to disrupt and discredit the
Western concept of democracy by promoting extremist candidates, parties, and
political figures.
In October, the U.S. government formally accused
Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations
ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.
President Barack Obama has said he warned Putin about
consequences for the attacks.
Trump has said he is not convinced Russia was behind
the cyber attacks. His transition team issued a statement on "claims of
foreign interference in U.S. elections" on Friday but did not directly
address the issue.
(Writing by David Alexander and John Walcott,
additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel
and Louise Heavens)
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