(Newswire.net — December 11, 2016) –An unnamed senior official in the Barack Obama administration told the New York Times that they concluded with high confidence that Russia hacked the DNC and RNC, but released no documents from the RNC.
In addition, U.S. intelligence officials have identified individual Russian officials they believe were responsible for the cyber-attacks, but none have been punished.
The identified individuals provided thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including that of the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, to WikiLeaks.
On Friday evening, The Washington Post issued a quote by an anonymous official who said the CIA believes Russia intervened in the election to help Trump win. Russia’s goal was to favor one candidate over the other in order to help Trump get elected.
On the same day, Barack Obama ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full review of the hacking-related activity aimed at disrupting the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“The investigation will be a deep dive, going back to the 2008 presidential elections, when cyber meddling was attributed to China”, said Eric Schultz, The White House principal deputy press secretary.
Schultz explained that this type of activity is nothing new for Moscow, and that the U.S. has seen Russia engage in these types of activities for years in Asia and across Europe.
He added that Barack Obama has ordered the results of the investigation before he leaves the White House on January 20th, and that the outcome of the investigation will be as public as a report can be.
Schultz also said that this investigation is not an effort to change the outcome of the U.S. elections. Its aim is to preserve the integrity of future U.S. elections.
According to The Washington Post, the White House had known about Russia’s interference, but could not decide how to respond before the presidential election without escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton’s campaign.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, doubted the veracity of the intelligence gathered about Russia’s interference. The Washington Post reports that he told the Obama administration that if it challenged the Russians publicly, he would see that act as partisan politics.
“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.” A statement released on Friday evening by President-elect Trump’s transition team states that it’s now time to move on and “Make America Great Again”.