US report blames Putin for election attack; says Russia preferred Trump

The Obama administration on Friday officially blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for directing a massive cyber assault against the US election in an attempt to "undermine" the democratic process and "harm" Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election," said the report, which is a declassified version of a longer, classified document the CIA, FBI and NSA prepared at President Barack Obama's request.

"Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency," it continued.

The report also said Russia developed "a clear preference" for President-elect Donald Trump as the campaign went on, and eventually "aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

The findings are part of a much-anticipated executive branch review of Russia's efforts to undermine the 2016 election that was released Friday. Trump has repeatedly dismissed and disparaged the government's investigation of the election-season hacking.

After meeting with top intelligence leaders on Friday to discuss the report, Trump said the hacks had "absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election" and he declined to say whether he agreed with the intelligence community's findings.

The report lays out the government's most extensive argument to date that the senior Moscow officials directed a series of disruptive election-season hacks that hit the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign operatives.

The Obama administration first accused Russia of orchestrating the cyberattacks in October. The digital thefts led to a WikiLeaks dump of embarrassing internal emails that ousted top Democratic National Committee leaders and destabilized Clinton's campaign in the final months.

In making its accusation the administration merely said it believed Russia wanted to "interfere" with the American election. Since October, intelligence officials have reportedly come to believe that Moscow was actively trying to install Trump in the White House, instead of merely attempting to sow discontent and doubt in the electoral process.

The report published Friday shed some light on the evidence that led to these conclusions.

"Moscow's approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia's understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates," the report states. "When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency."

Trump has snapped back at these allegations, accusing intelligence officials of peddling politically-motivated narratives to undermine his incoming administration.