Russians Acted to Help Trump Win Presidency, Report Says

Intelligence officials have reportedly determined in a secret assessment that Russian intervention in the 2016 election was intended not only to interfere and promote distrust in the U.S. election process but to help Donald Trump win the presidency, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Intelligence agencies also concluded that the Russians hacked into the Republican National Committee’s computer systems but did not release any information from those networks as opposed to the information released after the hacks on the Democratic National Committee, according to a separate report published in the New York Times. The report in the Times states it is far from clear that Russia's original attempt was to help Trump win the presidency.

Trump has continued to dismiss the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the hacks into the DNC and others, saying so recently in his interview with Time Magazine. In a brief statement, the Trump transition team dismissed the most recent reports.

"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again,'" the statement said.

The Post notes that the assessment leaves some questions unanswered as intelligence officials have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided hacked emails from the DNC and others to WikiLeaks, however these individuals were "one step" removed from the government and not members of the Kremlin itself. But Moscow's use of middlemen to participate in such operations is not uncommon.

The report comes as President Obama has ordered a full review of the election-related hacking, with the findings of that review expected to be made public before Obama leaves office on Jan. 20. Obama administration officials told NBC News that given Trump's continued rejection of intelligence officials, Obama is concerned that Russia will go unpunished unless he acts.

In October, the United States formally blamed Russia for the wave of political hacking during the election, saying they were "confident" that Russia was behind hacks of e-mails from persons and institutions, including U.S. political organizations, adding that the efforts were intended to interfere with the U.S. election process, stopping short of saying the goal was to help Trump win the presidency.

When concerns were swirling that the election results in three states - Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - might have been influenced by hacking, the Obama administration said the results of the election "accurately reflect the will of the American people," the Times reported in November. The administration said the Kremlin probably expected that the publicity after the U.S. accused Russia of hacking the emails, "from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations," would raise questions about the integrity of the election process.

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