Report Says Vladimir Putin Directly ‘Ordered’ Effort to Influence Election
According to a new report from the Associated Press, Russian president Vladimir Putin “ordered” the effort to directly hack the United States general presidential election.
BREAKING: New declassified report: Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘ordered’ effort to influence U.S. presidential election.
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 6, 2017
there it is https://t.co/CQmz0d6H6P pic.twitter.com/sGNgXcwT9i
— Justin Green (@JGreenDC) January 6, 2017
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, snd harm her electability and potential presidency.”
They went on to say in the report, released moments ago, that they place “high confidence,” in their findings, pointing out that the Russian government had a “clear preference” for the Republican presidential candidate over his Democratic rival.
The report continues, “Putin, Russian officials, and other pro-Kremlin pundits stopped publicly criticizing the US election process as unfair almost immediately after the election because Moscow probably assessed it would be counterproductive to building positive relations.”
It cites a “new unclassified report,” verifying the Kremlin’s direct involvement, though no additional information has been released at this time. This story is breaking and we will update as more information becomes available; read the full report in pdf form from the DNI here.
4:09 p.m. EST:
This is the full report as it is is currently available:
ICA_2017_01 by Mediaite on Scribd
We will update as more information becomes available.
UPDATE — 4:12 p.m. EST:
This is from the report:
We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.
That passage explains the careful wording in the statement released by President-elect Donald Trump after his meeting with the intelligence community today:
While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.
Emphasis ours.
