Left to right: Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Marcell Lettre II, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and United States Cyber Command and National Security Agency Director Admiral Michael Rogers testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking attacks and propaganda campaigns leading up to the 2016 elections, US intelligence agencies said in a declassified report Friday.
What’s more, the Russian efforts had a very specific purpose: shake faith in US democracy and undermine Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. „We further assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect [Donald] Trump’s election chances when possible,“ the report ( PDF ) says.
The use of email leaks to affect the US election was „unprecedented,“ the report says, adding that Russia has used these techniques in influence campaigns before but not to this degree.
The report, which was issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, summarizes the findings from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.
„These activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations,“ the report says.
It’s the fullest public account to date from the US intelligence community on Russia’s role in several hacks during the presidential campaign. It also resolves weeks of speculating about whether the three agencies reached the same conclusions. The report shows the CIA, FBI and NSA unified in the belief that Putin was directly involved in the influence campaign and aimed to boost Trump’s chances in the election.
The report also talks about „Guccifer 2.0,“ an online persona claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker who hacked the Democratic National Committee. Documents leaked by Guccifer 2.0 were traced by intelligence officials to the Russian intelligence agency called the GRU, the report says. The agencies believe the GRU „relayed“ emails and documents it stole from the DNC and „senior democratic officials“ to WikiLeaks.
The declassified version of the report doesn’t contain much supporting evidence, however. Its authors acknowledge that fact, saying the spy agencies need to protect their sources.
The classified version was shared with President Barack Obama on Thursday and with Trump on Friday morning.
Trump has challenged the idea that it’s possible to even know whether Russia was behind the hacking attacks that stole emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee and other key Democratic party organizations and leaders.
After being briefed on the classified report Friday, Trump called the meeting „constructive“ but didn’t say Russia was conclusively behind the influence campaign.
Russia has denied claims it interfered with the election. The Russian embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n