The Sunday News
Washington — A new declassified report says Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered” an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.
US intelligence officials released the 25-page public version of the report on Friday, after they briefed President-elect Donald Trump and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill from a longer, classified version.
The report says Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s long-standing desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order. It says the scope of Russia’s activities was significantly larger compared with previous operations.
After his briefing, Trump stopped short of embracing the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential campaign, saying only that any hacking attempts had “absolutely no effect” on the outcome of the election.
President-elect Donald Trump says he wants his administration to develop a plan in its first 90 days to “aggressively combat and stop cyber-attacks”.
The officials are Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey.
They’re preparing to point to multiple motives for Moscow’s alleged meddling as they brief Trump on their classified report.
They briefed senior lawmakers on Friday morning. They briefed President Barack Obama on Thursday.
— News24
