Intelligence report: Russia hacked the RNC, may have dirt on Trump

In a pair of political bombshells, the US intelligence community announced that not only did Russian spies likely hack the Republican party alongside the DNC, but that the President-elect’s campaign team maintained routine contact with Russian operatives throughout the election cycle. Not only that, US intelligence has alleged that Russia may have compromising personal or financial information about Donald Trump, which could be used to blackmail the next President and directly influence his actions in office.

The first announcement involves classified briefings presented to both President Obama and Donald Trump that allege Russians have compromising information on the PEOTUS. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers all signed off on the two-page synopsis.

These allegations were extracted from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative. CNN has confirmed that US Intelligence consider the British operative’s past work to be credible. In fact, some of these memos are from as early as last summer, but US Intel has spent the last few months vetting the veracity of the British operative’s European network. It should be noted, however, that said operative now works for a private intelligence firm, which by definition, does not have the same resource pool as a national intelligence service. What’s more, the full document, which Buzzfeed has obtained, contains a number of inconsistencies.

As Buzzfeed points out:

It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, “Alpha Group,” throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates.” It is not reserved for anyone, and is also populated by the very wealthy.

The FBI has not confirmed whether it is currently investigating the charges.

The synopsis also alleges that Russian intermediaries and members of the Trump campaign colluded to share information throughout the election. According to the report, the disclosure of this classified information to congressional members prompted Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to write FBI Director Comey in October and insist that, “It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States.”

TASOS KATOPODIS via Getty Images

The intelligence agencies released this synopsis as an addendum to the existing report detailing Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election not only to call out the foreign power and note that its information leaks asymmetrically harmed the Democratic nominee, but also to alert Trump that such information is spreading through the US intelligence community.

Additionally, FBI Director James Comey announced on Tuesday that there was a “penetration on the Republican side of the aisle and old Republican National Committee domains.” The RNC has already denied that the hack occurred. This announcement came during a Senate committee hearing regarding Russia’s 2016 electoral involvement.

“There was evidence of hacking directed at state-level organizations, state-level campaigns, and the RNC, but old domains of the RNC, meaning old emails they weren’t using. None of that was released,” Comey said. He also noted that the Trump campaign itself was not attacked. Comey additionally testified that while both cyber-assaults used similar attack vectors, the intruders dug far deeper into the DNC than they did the Republicans.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also testified at that hearing and stated that the US intelligence community concluded with “high confidence” that Russia’s involvement was done specifically to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “The Russians just believed, or came to the conclusion, that because the President-elect is a businessman, that he would be easier to make deals with than the Democrats,” Clapper said.

Source: CNN, CNN