As U. S. intelligence officials have raised increasing alarm this week over Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, Donald Trump has sought to recast the investigation as a matter of old-fashioned politics rather than national security.
The president-elect has reacted to mounting pressure to take stronger steps against Russia not only by trying to discredit the intelligence community but also by suggesting that the intense Washington focus on the issue is being driven by political rivals still stung by his electoral victory.
“This is a political witch hunt,” Trump said Friday in an interview with the New York Times ahead of a private briefing from U. S. officials on a classified 50-page report, ordered by President Obama, on Russia’s role in the election.
Trump softened his tone in a written statement after the two-hour meeting at Trump Tower, calling it “constructive,” but his demeanor this week has suggested that he is unlikely to rein in his attacks or accept the report’s findings.
The assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russian President Vladi­mir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” to harm Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and aid Trump’s candidacy.
On Friday, Trump was formally certified as the winner of the election during a final congressional tally of the electoral college votes overseen by Vice President Biden. But Trump and his aides have been wary that reports of Russian hacking could be used by his rivals to cast doubt on the integrity of his victory.
In his statement, Trump emphasized that regardless of what happened, “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.” The report said officials had not attempted to make an assessment of the impact of Russia’s actions.
Trump’s stance has alarmed intelligence officials, who have warned that his disparaging comments risk undermining public confidence in their work both at home and abroad. And Democratic lawmakers have dismissed his claims that there was a political motivation behind the investigation, emphasizing that the goal is to protect America’s democratic institutions.
Last week, Obama announced that the United States would expel 35 Russian diplomats and close two Russian compounds as part of a series of punitive actions in response to the hacking.
“It’s not a witch hunt — it’s a search for the truth,” said Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.). “I think it’s an important story, and I think we need to get to the bottom of it and explore what all the facts might be. We’re talking about messing with the democratic process, messing with the right to vote and messing with our elections. Any investigation would be completely appropriate.”
Brian Fallon, who served as a campaign spokesman for Clinton, wrote on Twitter that it is “seriously weird” that Trump has not acknowledged Russia’s role.
Yet Trump’s allies rallied around him.
In a pair of tweets late Thursday and early Friday, Trump complained that NBC News reported details of the intelligence report before he was briefed and vowed to ask Congress to investigate the leaks. “Who gave them this report and why?” Trump wrote . “Politics!”
WikiLeaks — whose founder, Julian Assange, has said Russia was not responsible for leaking stolen Democratic Party emails that his group made public before the election — echoed Trump’s charge, accusing the Obama administration and the CIA of “illegally funneling” top-secret information to NBC for “political reasons.”
NBC reported only on the declassified version of the report.
Earlier in the week, Trump claimed that intelligence officials had delayed their briefing for him because, he suggested, they needed more time to build their case — a charge that U. S. officials flatly denied. Trump also ridiculed the Democratic National Committee, whose emails were hacked, for having weak cybersecurity defenses while praising the Republican Party for taking more precautions.
He also said Democratic officials should be asked to respond to “terrible things they did and said,” citing the disclosure among the stolen emails that Clinton’s campaign had received notice of a CNN debate question ahead of the event. Former CNN analyst Donna Brazile , a longtime Democratic operative and Clinton supporter, was revealed as the person who sent the tip.
Trump called it a “total double standard.”
The missives have put Republican leaders on Capitol Hill in the difficult spot of trying to navigate a fine line between holding Moscow accountable and not offending the president-elect.
On Thursday, at a Senate committee hearing on foreign cyberthreats, several GOP senators deflected attention from the details of Russia’s hacking to take issue with the media’s coverage of the electoral interference and to question why Putin would want Trump to win.
In a statement on the intelligence report Friday afternoon, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said it was clear that Russia had meddled, and he strongly condemned “any outside interference in our elections.”
But he added that Trump won the election “fair and square” and said the nation “cannot allow partisans to exploit this report in an attempt to delegitimize the president-elect’s victory.”
Trump’s criticism of the intelligence assessments — including mocking references to flawed analyses of Iraq’s weapons cache more than a decade ago — has threatened to open an unprecedented rift between the incoming commander in chief and the nation’s 17 spying agencies. The friction has raised questions about how Trump, who has decided to receive few of the daily intelligence briefings traditionally offered to a president-elect, will engage with intelligence officials once he takes office.
At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest declined to respond to Trump’s contention that the hacking probe was a “witch hunt,” saying that Obama’s goal in ordering the report was to help devise strategies to prevent future interference and to hold accountable those who were responsible.
Obama told a Chicago television station that he hoped that after Trump begins receiving intelligence briefings, “some of those current tensions will be reduced.”
David Weigel contributed to this report.

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When Deb Nielsen got a text from her vacationing daughter the Scarborough woman’s thoughts were of the mundane travel headaches the 21-year-old might be experiencing during her first airline flight: lost luggage, a missed connection, a bumpy flight.
“I’m OK, but something happened,” MacKensey Nielsen’s text read.
Deb Nielsen texted back, asking her daughter to call. That’s when she learned that MacKensey had been in the baggage claim area of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida on Friday when a man began firing a handgun, killing five people and wounding eight, authorities say.
Three of those who were killed stood near MacKensey, she told her mother.
“The woman beside her got hit and dropped to the ground and then (MacKensey) dropped to the ground,” Deb Nielsen said. “She said, ‘I was so close, I was touching them.’”
MacKensey caught sight of the shooter, she told her mother, but in the chaos, didn’t get a good look at him. Both MacKensey and her boyfriend, Jacob Collette, 24, dropped to the ground as those who were shot also fell to the floor in the baggage claim area.
Collette planned the trip to Florida that was supposed to be a dream vacation for his girlfriend. The couple, who live in Saco, flew from the Portland International Jetport Friday morning and landed in Fort Lauderdale at midday. After collecting their luggage, they were going to get something to eat and then make the connection for their cruise ship, where they would spend the next week soaking up the warmth, escaping, for a bit, another cold Maine winter.
MacKensey Nielsen was nervous, but also excited Friday morning for her first trip on an airliner, her mother said.
“It was something that was going to make memories,” Deb Nielsen recalled telling her daughter, the fourth of her five children. “It did. Just not good memories.”
Deb Nielsen kept in contact with her daughter all Friday afternoon, and said that the couple had been interviewed by the FBI and were finally told they could leave the airport around 6:30 p.m., nearly six hours after the shooting.
Their cruise ship had sailed, so the two were headed to a hotel to deal with what had happened and figure out what they do next.
“The thing that stuck in her mind was the people that were around her,” Deb Nielsen said One thing is certain, Deb Nielsen said: there will be no flight back to Maine for the couple.
“They’re waiting to see if they’ll get on another ship,” she said. “If they don’t, we’ll drive down because she doesn’t want to fly.”
Deb Nielsen believes God played a role in sparing her daughter, and said that she and her husband, Allen, were praying for those families who didn’t hear from loved ones Friday afternoon.
A family of four from Warren also was in the baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when the gunman opened fire.
Trisha and Jack Martin and their sons, Ryan, 18, and Ben, 14, were unhurt, family members said.
Ben Martin is a student at Medomak Valley High School and Ryan Martin is a student at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire.
Trisha Martin told a family member she was standing next to a man who was shot in the head and killed by the gunman.
The Martins became aware of the shooting when they heard popping sounds.
The Martin family had flown out of the jetport early Friday to Atlanta, and from there to Fort Lauderdale. They planned to leave on a vacation cruise Saturday.
Casey Prentice, the owner of Evo restaurant in Portland, also was in the airport when the shooting occurred Friday, but not in the baggage claim area.
Evo told WCSH-TV that he was in the Sky Lounge at the airport when people ran through, yelling “shots fired.”
He said that the doors from the lounge to the terminal were locked down, but people began to run out of the terminal onto the tarmac, the station said. Evo soon followed, according to WCSH, and sat with his back to a concrete wall.
John Choudhari of Portland said the airport was a scene of utter chaos for hours after the shooting, stretching into the night.
Choudhari, 26, a sports clerk at the Portland Press Herald, and his girlfriend, Jill Bradbury, 22, a waitress, had spent five days in the Bahamas and were on their way back to Maine Friday.
The Portland couple’s itinerary took them to Fort Lauderdale, where they were to take a flight to Boston. They were eating lunch in an airport restaurant when people starting getting alerts on their phones about the shooting, he said.
Choudhari and Bradbury decided to go to their gate, where at about 2 p.m., they were told to get ready to board their plane.
“Then we just saw hundreds of people streaming and running and TSA agents who had their guns drawn and they were telling everyone to get on the ground,” Choudhari said, adding that he and Bradbury dove underneath chairs in the waiting area. “We had no idea what was going on. People were stacked on top of each other.”
Then, he said, another TSA agent told everyone to run, so the throng streamed out of emergency doors onto the tarmac.
“I sprained my ankle pretty bad doing it, but at that point, I didn’t care,” Choudhari said.
Trucks rolled onto the tarmac and people were told to hide behind them as rumors spread of second and third shooters and panicked families became separated, Choudhari said.
Finally, as things calmed down, airport workers distributed bottled water to the people and they eventually were led back into the terminal. Initially, Choudhari said, the stranded passengers were told they wouldn’t be able to reclaim their belongings Friday, until people complained about medications and cash left behind. Finally, he said, they were led in small groups back into the terminal to recover their items. By 9:30 p.m., the airport was still crowded with people trying to make arrangements for the night after all flights were canceled.
Choudhari said he managed to book a room in Port Everglades and the couple has reservations on a flight from West Palm Beach to Boston Saturday night, although he noted ruefully that depends on the weather, with Boston expected to get snow.
Courier-Gazette Staff Writer Daniel Dunkle contributed to this report.
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