January 07, 2017•Update: January 07, 2017
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
Russian President Vladimir Putin directly ordered a campaign aimed at influencing the U.S. presidential election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump, an unclassified intelligence report said Friday.
The CIA and FBI are highly confident in the assessment while the NSA has "moderate confidence", the report said.
"We assess Putin, his advisers, and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump over Secretary [Hillary] Clinton," according to the 23-page report.
The Department of Homeland Security assessed that Russia did not target or compromise systems that were involved in vote tallying, but it had access to multiple state and local electoral boards.
Russia's main intelligence directorate, the GRU, used the online persona Guccifer 2.0, DCleaks.com and Wikileaks to release data it obtained though cyber espionage, according to the report.
Beyond the cyber campaign, the report determined the Kremlin used its state-owned media apparatus, RT, and paid trolls "as part of its influence efforts to denigrate” Clinton.
"Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency," the report said.
The findings were released just hours after Trump was briefed on them at his self-named tower in Manhattan.
The president-elect acknowledged in a statement after the meeting that Russia and others sought to hack the Democratic National Committee (DNC), but maintained the efforts had "absolutely no effect" on the vote results.
The hacking of the DNC as well as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta revealed unsavory details about how the supposedly neutral organization conspired to favor Clinton against populist Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.
Regular leaks of DNC and Clinton emails in the months leading up to the Nov. 8 polls cemented a popular narrative that first female presidential nominee of a major party was not trustworthy.
