CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Donald Trump win White House

Washington: The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the US electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, according to US officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton's chances.

"It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected," said a senior US official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to US senators. "That's the consensus view."

The Obama administration has been debating for months how to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions, with White House officials concerned about escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton's campaign.

Barack Obama seeking answers before he steps down.Credit: AP

In September, during a secret briefing for congressional leaders, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell voiced doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, according to officials present.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence community's findings about Russian hacking. "I don't believe they interfered" in the election, he told Time magazine this week. The hacking, he said, "could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey."

The CIA shared its latest assessment with key senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week, in which agency officials cited a growing body of intelligence from multiple sources. Agency briefers told the senators it was now "quite clear" that electing Trump was Russia's goal, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

President-elect Donald Trump appeared to invite hacking of Hillary Clinton.Credit: AP

The CIA presentation to senators about Russia's intentions fell short of a formal US assessment produced by all 17* intelligence agencies. A senior US official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency's assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin "directing" the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior US official said. Those actors, according to the official, were "one step" removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said in a television interview that the "Russian government is not the source."

The White House and CIA officials declined to comment.

Earlier on Friday, Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on January 20, the White House said.

In October, the US government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organisations ahead of the November 8 presidential election, and Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.

The review and its timeline are a signal that Obama wants the issue addressed before he hands power to President-elect Donald Trump, who cast doubt on Russia's hacking role and praised Putin during the campaign.

Obama's homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, told reporters the report's results would be shared with lawmakers and others.

"The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process ... and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress," she said during an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the review would be a "deep dive" that would look for a pattern of such behaviour over several years, as far back as the 2008 presidential election. He noted that Obama wanted the review completed under his watch.

"This is a major priority for the president of the United States," Schultz said.

During his campaign for the White House, Trump called on Russia to dig up missing emails from his opponent, Hillary Clinton, from her time as secretary of state under Obama, a fellow Democrat. That move prompted critics to accuse him of encouraging foreign actors to conduct espionage.

The New York businessman has said he is not convinced Russia was behind the attacks, but people he has nominated for top national security posts in his new administration have taken a harsher stance toward Moscow.

Russian officials have denied all accusations of interference in the US election.

Obama has come under pressure from Democratic lawmakers to declassify more intelligence on the alleged hackings.

A government source said the review was sparked in part to respond to those demands as well as to determine how much material related to the subject could be made public.

"Given President-elect Trump's disturbing refusal to listen to our intelligence community and accept that the hacking was orchestrated by the Kremlin, there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month," Representative Adam Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Monaco said cyber attacks were not new but might have crossed a "new threshold" this year.

When she was working as a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation official in 2008, she said, the agency alerted the presidential campaigns of then-Senator Obama and Republican Senator John McCain that China had infiltrated their respective systems.

"We've seen in 2008 and in this last election system malicious cyber activity," Monaco said.

Asked if Trump's transition team was not concerned enough about Russia's influence on the election or about other threats to the United States such as infectious disease outbreaks, Monaco said it was too soon to say. She noted that she had not met with her successor because the Trump team had yet to name one.

Washington Post, Reuters

* The formal US assessment referred to in this report was based on information collected by three agencies - the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency - and published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which represents all US intelligence agencies. It is therefore incorrect to say that it was "produced by all 17 intelligence agencies".