The CIA has concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election with the specific intent of helping Donald Trump be elected as president of the United States, it was revealed Friday night.
From New York Post
Intelligence agencies identified people close to the Russian government who obtained thousands of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, The Washington Post reported.
The hackers then funneled the stolen material over to WikiLeaks, which spread the information across the Internet in a sophisticated cyber propaganda campaign.
“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 paper quoted a senior US official as saying. “That’s the consensus view.”
Trump blasted the finding in a strongly worded statement that questioned the integrity of US intelligence community.
“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” read the statement from Trump’s transition team. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’ ”
The New York Times also reported Friday night that Russians had hacked the Republican National Committee in addition to the DNC.
But the hackers did not release any information gathered from the GOP computer systems.
President Obama earlier on Friday ordered a broad review of campaign-season cyber attacks. The review, led by intelligence agencies, will be a “deep dive” into a possible pattern of increased “malicious cyber activity,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
Read Full Story At New York Post
See Trump response to CIA’s findings
