Rreport say the CIA believes the Russian government intervened to help Donald Trump win the Presidential election, it has been claimed. Last night, the Washington Post reported CIA sources as saying the agency now believes it has evidence individuals with connections to the Russian government were behind a number of hacks targeting the Democrats.
The Clinton team expressed concern throughout campaign that the Republican was a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin and that the Kremlin was, at the very least, condoning hacks if not supporting them.
The officials described the hackers as people known to the intelligence community who were part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and reduce Clinton’s chances of winning the election.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that
Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” the Post quoted a senior U.S. official as saying.
In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a
campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organiSations ahead of the November 8 presidential election.
“That’s the consensus view.”
The source had witnessed an intelligence presentation made by the CIA to key Us senators behind closed-doors last week.The agency’s assessment, which was supposed to have been kept secret, is based on a growing body of evidence from multiple sources, the Post reports.
CIA agents allegedly say it is now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal..
President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.
But Russian officials have denied all accusations of interference in the U.S. election.
A CIA spokeswoman said the agency had no comment on the
report.
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.
“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” a statement said.
The hacked emails passed to WikiLeaks were a regular source of embarrassment to the Clinton campaign during the race for the presidency.
The CIA presentation fell short of a formal U.S. assessment by all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.
A senior U.S. official said there remained minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the assessment because some questions are unanswered, it said.
Intelligence agencies did not have specific intelligence
showing the Kremlin directed the individuals to pass the hacked emails to WikiLeaks, another senior official told the Post.
The actors were “one step” removed from the Russian government rather than government employees, the official said.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said in a television
interview that the Russian government was not the source of the emails.