CIA Concludes Russian Interference Aimed To Elect Trump

Updated at 1:49 p.m. ET with confirmation from the U.S. official and comments from Sen. Ron Wyden

The CIA has concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election specifically to help Donald Trump win the presidency, a U.S. official has confirmed to NPR.

"Before, there was confidence about the fact that Russia interfered," the official told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. "But there was low confidence on what the direction and intentionality of the interference was. Now they [the CIA] has come to the conclusion that Russia was trying to tip the election to Trump."

The official adds: "The reason the assessment changed is that new information became available" since Oct. 7, when the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement accusing Russia of interfering with the American election process.

The Washington Post first reported the CIA's new assessment on Friday.

In addition to hacking into Democratic organizations, Russians hacked the Republican National Committee's computer systems, according to a separate report from The New York Times — but they did not release any information that might have been retrieved from Republican networks.

"Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials," the Post reports. "Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton's chances."

" 'It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,' said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. 'That's the consensus view.' "

In a previous assessment, CIA officials had thought Russians intervened with the intention of undermining Americans' electoral system, Adam Entous, one of the Post story's reporters, tells NPR's Scott Simon.

On Friday evening, the Trump transition team fired back with a statement dismissing the report of the agency's conclusion.

"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the statement said. "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.' "

Reporter Adam Entous says he interpreted the transition team's reaction as disbelief in the CIA's latest assessment due to an imperfect track record. "It's certainly true that the CIA has been wrong before — you know, intelligence failures are not that uncommon in the history of the CIA," Entous says.

But whether or not Trump's top officials acknowledge the report as a possible threat, Entous points out Trump will soon be in command of the intelligence agencies.

"I'm sure they're going to declassify some elements of the report and I'm sure there will be leaks," he adds, but the Obama administration can't disclose the full details of the case, because it would be "compromising what's known as 'sources and methods,' which would then make it harder for the CIA and the NSA and other spy agencies to get more information in the future."

Earlier Friday, President Obama ordered the intelligence community to conduct a "full review" of "malicious cyber activity" timed to U.S. elections, as we previously reported:

"In the 2016 election, U.S. intelligence officials charged that Russia had interfered. In early October, they released a strongly worded statement saying they were 'confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations.' The statement went on to say 'these thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.' "

The U.S. official told Mary Louise Kelly that "there is a determination to do something" before the Obama administration leaves power. "It's still being discussed exactly what to do. And as we've said before, some of it you may see and some of it you will not."

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Kelly the response from President-elect Donald Trump is "very misguided."

"When you have strong evidence that a foreign power has interfered with the American election, with American institutions, then what you do is keep digging. You get all the facts out," Wyden said. "You respond to the American people with the kind of information that they have a right to know."

He also advocated releasing more information on the cyberattacks.

"I do believe there is important information that the American people have a right to know. It ought to be declassified promptly."