U.S. intelligence agencies: Putin ordered intervention in presidential election
Source: The Washington Post
By Greg Miller January 6 at 3:53 PM
Russia carried out a comprehensive cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and aspired to help elect Donald Trump by discrediting his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report released Friday.
The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying that Moscows assault represented a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort beyond previous election-related espionage.
The campaign was ordered by Putin himself and initially sought primarily to undermine public faith is the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electoral prospects. But as the campaign proceeded, Russia developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump and repeatedly sought to elevate him by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
The document represents an extraordinarily direct and detailed account of a longstanding United States' adversarys multi-pronged intervention in a fundamental pillar of American democracy.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-chiefs-expected-in-new-york-to-brief-trump-on-russian-hacking/2017/01/06/5f591416-d41a-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html?pushid=breaking-news_1483737231&tid=notifi_push_breaking-news
Putin Ordered ‘Influence Campaign’ Aimed at U.S. Election, Report Says
By DAVID E. SANGERJAN. 6, 2017
WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” and turned from seeking to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton to developing “a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
The conclusions were part of a declassified intelligence report, ordered by President Obama, that was released Friday afternoon. Its main conclusions were described to Donald J. Trump by intelligence officials earlier in the day, and he responded by acknowledging that Russia sought to hack into the Democratic National Committee, but said nothing about the conclusion that Mr. Putin had sought to aid his candidacy, other than that it had no effect on the outcome.
The report, a damning and surprisingly detailed account of Russia’s efforts to undermine the American electoral system and Mrs. Clinton in particular, went on to assess that Mr. Putin “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”
The report described a broad campaign that included covert operations, including cyberactivities, with “trolling” and “fake news.”
In the unclassified version of the report, the intelligence agencies also concluded “with high confidence” that Russia’s main military intelligence unit, the G.R.U., created the “persona” called Guccifer 2.0 and a website, DCLeaks.com, to release the emails of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of the Clinton campaign, John D. Podesta.
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russia-hack-report.html?emc=edit_na_20170106&nlid=57435284&ref=cta
= new reply since forum marked as read
won so big.
