Intl agencies to brief Trump on Russian hack today

Washington [USA]: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to receive a briefing related to the Russian hack by intelligence agencies on Friday as the classified intelligence report was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday.

According to officials, U.S. intelligence has identified the go-betweens the Russians used to provide stolen emails to WikiLeaks, according to US officials familiar, reports the CNN.

In a Fox News interview earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied that Russia was the source of leaked Democratic emails.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has received new information following the election that gave agencies increased confidence that Russia carried out the hack and did so, in part, to help Trump win.

Included in that new information were intercepted conversations of Russian officials expressing happiness at Trump’s win. Another official described some of the messages as congratulatory.

Officials said this was just one of multiple indicators to give them high confidence of both Russian involvement and Russian intentions.

However, officials reiterated that there is no single intercepted communication that qualifies as a “smoking gun” on Russia’s intention to benefit Trump’s candidacy. (ANI)