Putin, Russia Tried to Help Trump By ‘Discrediting’ Clinton

A Russian covert operation designed to undermine American democracy evolved into an attempt to help Donald Trump win, according to the declassified version of a long-awaited intelligence report released Friday.

In “Key Judgments,” the report says, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”

The report says that the Russian government tried to help Trump “by discrediting Secretary Clinton.” It says that of the three agencies that prepared the report, the CIA, the FBI have “high confidence” in this judgment, while the NSA “has moderate confidence.”

The report also says that the Russian hacking campaign targeted or compromised “elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards,” but not systems involved in vote tallying.

The 25-page report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, called “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections,” offers the public a flavor of what officials say is a much more detailed dossier of still-secret evidence that led all 17 American intelligence agencies to conclude with high confidence that the Russians — not the Chinese or a 400-pound hacker in his bedroom, as Trump famously put it — were behind an unprecedented cyber intrusion that some lawmakers have called an act of war.

More From MSNBC: