The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Report points at Putin
Trump more accepting of Russian influence, stresses vote legitimacy.
WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a hidden campaign to influence America’s presidential election in favor of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies declared Friday in the government’s first formal report in support of sensational allegations that Trump and his supporters have staunchly resisted.
The intelligence report was an unclassified version of a more-detailed classified account given earlier to Trump, the White House and congressional leaders, and withheld the evidence that backs up its assertions. The president-elect said after his own
meeting with the nation’s top intelligence officials that it was clear to him that the email hacking did not deliver him the presidency — although he did not deny the Russians were involved, a conclusion he had previously disparaged.
The unclassified version was the most detailed public account to date of Russian efforts to interfere with the U.S. political process, detailing actions that included hacking into the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta. Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid “trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said. There was no suggestion that Russia affected actual vote counting or tampered with ballot machines.
The report, for the first time, explicitly tied Putin to the hackings, called it the “boldest effort yet” to influence a U.S. election, and said the Russian government provided hacked emails to WikiLeaks — something the website’s founder, Julian Assange, has repeatedly denied. The intelligence agencies also said Russia will continue to try to influence future events in the U.S. and worldwide, particularly among U.S. allies.
Since Election Day, the intelligence agencies said, Russia has launched a so-called “spear-phishing” campaign, targeting the email accounts of U.S. government employees and think tanks that specialize in national security, defense and foreign policy.
The report lacked specifics about how the U.S. learned what it said it knows, such as any intercepted conversations or electronic messages among Russian leaders, including Putin, or about specific hacker techniques or digital tools the U.S. may have traced back to Russia in its investigations.
Exactly how the U.S. monitors its adversaries in cyberspace is a closely guarded secret, since revealing such details could help foreign governments further obscure their activities.
The unclassified report included footnotes acknowledging that it “does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.” It said its conclusions were identical to those in the classified version, which was more detailed.
The unclassified report said the Russian effort was both political and personal.
“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency,” it said. “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
Putin most likely wanted to discredit Clinton because he blames her for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he resents her for disparaging comments she has made about him, the report said. It said the Russian effort was the “boldest yet” intended to affect a U.S. election.
The report was released shortly after intelligence officials finished briefing Trump — a move probably intended to bolster the intelligence findings against pushback from the president-elect.
Trump could use the lack of supporting details in the public version to fuel his dismissal of the findings, even though he has now been briefed on the classified portion.
Trump has been disdainful of the intelligence agencies’ claims of Russia’s involvement for months, long before he saw the classified information Friday.
Just hours before he was briefed, Trump dismissed the assessment and told The New York Times the focus on Russia’s involvement is a “political witch hunt” by adversaries who are embarrassed they lost the election.
“They got beaten very badly in the election,” Trump said. “They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this.”
After finally seeing the intelligence behind the claims of the outgoing Obama administration, Trump released a one-page statement that did not address whether Russia sought to meddle. Instead, he said, “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”
Clapper told Congress on Thursday that intelligence agencies had no way of gauging what influence Russia’s interference had in the outcome of the election. It was unclear Friday what evidence Trump had to support his claims.
Trump acknowledged in his statement that “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people” are consistently trying to hack U.S. networks, including the Democratic National Committee’s.
He said, as did the intelligence report, that “there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
Trump said that as president he would appoint a team to develop a plan to “aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks.”