Trump dismisses intel’s talk of ‘Putin influence’

WASHINGTON: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” in the 2016 US election to undermine faith in the democratic process, harm Hillary Clinton’s electability and improve Donald Trump’s electoral chances, the US intelligence has said.

A declassified summary of the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian meddling also said Moscow had “developed a clear preference” for Trump.

But Trump said: “There was absolutely no effect (of the hackings) on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”

The report didn’t say that either, but, in the assessment of the intelligence community, Putin and the Russian government had “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavourably to him.” Russian meddling in US elections is not new, the report said, citing 2012 and 2008 polls as recent examples, but it was the most egregious yet—“demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations”.

And it was ordered directly by President Putin, the report said. “We assess that influence campaigns are approved at the highest levels of the Russian government—particularly those that would be politically sensitive.”

Though a clear timeline didn’t emerge in the report for the “influence campaign”, its first traceable manifestation was Russian intelligence gaining access to the Democratic party’s computers in July 2015. They stayed there till June 2016.

The US has blamed Russian intelligence agencies General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (better known the world over as just GRU) and the Federal Security Service (also known as FSB, successor to KGB) and sanctioned