Despite this assessment, Trump sent a clear message that just because Russian Federation sought to undermine American democracy is no reason to not improve relations with Moscow.
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A senior US intelligence official confirmed to NBC News that the report, which was delivered to President Obama on Thursday, found Russian Federation waged cyber intrusions against the Democratic National Committee, the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and American corporations – though not all the attempts were successful.
According to the 15-page declassified version, the cyberattacks were also targeted to “denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency”.
President Obama will be briefed on the conclusions of the Russian hacking report on Thursday, with President-elect Trump getting his briefing on Friday.
US President elect Donald Trump.
The official finding of the NSA, FBI and Central Intelligence Agency is that Putin ‘ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election’.
The classified report he was shown stated that Putin “ordered” a stealth influence campaign previous year aimed at influencing the US presidential election.
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“We have enough problems around the world without yet another one”, he tweeted, saying Russians would respect “us far more” under his administration than they do with Barack Obama in the White House. Trump also tweeted that an intelligence briefing had been delayed, but Colbert noted reports that it had always been scheduled for Friday.
Trump was referring to thousands of emails and documents hackers took from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, which were published by WikiLeaks in the weeks ahead of the November 8 presidential election.
Trump still is expected to name a Director of National Intelligence, but he is said to be looking at ways to reorganize the agency. He said the report to be released next week will not question the outcome or legitimacy of the election results.
The tweet is the latest in a string of criticisms the president-elect has lobbed at the US intelligence community in what has escalated into an all-out feud between the billionaire New Yorker and the agencies he believes are trying to delegitimize his presidency.
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Since winning the election, Mr Trump has repeatedly questioned United States intelligence claims of Russian hacking. On Wednesday, he appeared to side with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose organization publicly released the hacked Democratic emails.
