Who hacked? Trump challenges intel agencies he’ll oversee
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated his blunt public challenge to the U.S. intelligence agencies he will soon oversee, appearing to embrace WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s contention that Russia did not provide his group with the hacked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 election.
Trump’s defiance has increased the pressure on intelligence officials to provide decisive evidence of Russian election interference. A full report was ordered by President Barack Obama last month, and Obama will receive the report and be briefed on it Thursday, according to a White House official who wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters and requested anonymity. High-level intelligence officials are heading to New York Friday to brief Trump on the classified findings.
The Obama administration also plans to make an unclassified version public before the president leaves office Jan. 20.
Russia not only meddled in the election, but did so to help Trump win, according to the intelligence agencies’ assessment. But the administration has so far released only limited information to support that conclusion. And in the absence of such public evidence, the president-elect has seized on some Americans’ skepticism of U.S. intelligence in general, citing high-profile missteps that led to the Iraq war.