The version of
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections released for public consumption contained the same conclusions as the classified version, however, complete supporting information for the claims made in the public report was omitted due to its
classified nature. The intelligence used was compiled by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the
National Security Agency (NSA), and throughout the report confidence-levels by the agencies relating to specific claims were measured. In the report, it is explicitly made known that the US Intelligence Community only analyzed and monitored the intentions, capabilities, and actions of the Russian government, and not what, if any, impact their influence campaign had on US public opinion or the
US political process. Much of the content was focused on RT, the Kremlin-funded television network, and its role in attempting to manipulate US public opinion and discourse. The report was the most detailed public collection of Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 elections released as of January 2017. According to CNN, the CIA and FBI took
Steele's dossier "seriously enough that they kept it out of" the January 6, 2017, assessment "in order to not divulge which parts of the dossier they had corroborated and how."
Russian actions in the 2016 election • The Russian influence campaign was directly ordered by
Vladimir Putin with the intention of promoting and increasing the electoral-chances of then-candidate
Donald Trump while discrediting
Hillary Clinton and increasing political and social discord in the United States. The CIA and FBI made this claim with "high confidence" while the NSA displayed "moderate confidence." • The
Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), Russia's military intelligence service, used the
Guccifer 2.0 persona to disseminate information gained from the compromise of
Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers. This claim was made in "high confidence" by the agencies. • Multiple state election databases were accessed and probed by Russian intelligence, however the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed the systems involved in vote tallying were not compromised. • Putin had a personal preference for candidate-Trump due to his advocacy of Russia-friendly policies in
Ukraine and
Syria on the campaign trail, and his stated desire for a closer relationship with
Moscow. • Immediately after the election, Russian government officials halted their characterizations of the US election processes as unfair due to their belief that doing so would have hampered the possibility of warm relations with the incoming administration. • The tactics used to meddle in the 2016 US election are the result of "years of investment" by Russia which has employed similar tactics in
former Soviet republics, allowing them to sharpen their skills. • Russian intelligence services gained entry into the servers of the Democratic National Committee as early as July 2015, and the GRU began
cyber operations oriented at the US election as early as March 2016. In May, hackers "exfiltrated large volumes" of data from the DNC. • Guccifer 2.0,
DCLeaks, and
WikiLeaks were used by Russia as intermediaries to publicly release "victim data" obtained from US targets. WikiLeaks was purportedly chosen by Moscow for this task due to its "self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity", though no data leaked to the organization contained "evident forgeries." •
RT (formerly Russia Today) actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. In 2013, the news agency's editor-in-chief visited the Ecuadorian embassy where
Julian Assange resides to negotiate a possible contract renewal and RT routinely gave Assange "sympathetic coverage" and a "platform to denounce the United States." • Russia gathered information on
Republican political targets during the course of the election cycle but withheld that information from the public. • Russian state media arms such as RT,
Sputnik, and a web of Internet trolls consistently praised candidate-Trump while providing negative coverage of his opponent, Clinton. The media outlets targeted US domestic audiences using English language mediums to portray candidate-Trump in a positive light and disparage US media coverage of him as prejudiced and motivated by their commitment to the American
political establishment. • RT published a variety of anti-Clinton material throughout the election cycle intended to disparage Hillary Clinton. Among them were videos titled "How 100% of the Clintons' 'Charity' Went to…Themselves," and "Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money." • Before Election Day, Russian ultranationalist politician
Vladimir Zhirinovsky proclaimed that Russia would "drink champagne" in the event of a Trump victory, due to the anticipation of Russia being able to move on its positions in Ukraine and Syria. • One of the main propagators of Russian interference was the
Saint Petersburg-based
Internet Research Agency (IRA), a troll farm financed by a Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence services. Some of the trolls at the IRA had previously been used to advocate online for pro-Russia causes in Ukraine.
RT-specific assessments •
RT America escalated its anti-US rhetoric in the lead-up to the
2012 presidential election, labeling the US's electoral system as "undemocratic" and encouraged Americans to revolt and "take this government back." During the 2012 election, RT ran a multitude of segments alleging voter machine vulnerabilities, widespread voter fraud, and aired two new shows which overtly criticized the United States and the Western institutions while promoting "radical content." • In November 2012, RT ran a documentary about the
Occupy Wall Street movement which characterized the movement as a struggle against the "ruling class" and reiterated calls for Americans to "take back" the government, claiming that the only method of changing the US government was through revolution. •
Anti-fracking has been a popular talking point for RT, likely an indicator of the Russian government's fear that an increase in fracking could lead to an expanded US natural gas market, threatening Russia's stake in the industry. • During the
2008 Russo-Georgian War, RT claimed the Georgian government was killing civilians and orchestrating a genocide in
South Ossetia Russian government intentions in the 2016 election The report affirmed that numerous past incidents had motivated the Russian government to wage an influence operation in support of
Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Vladimir Putin believed that Russia was being demeaned on the international stage by a series of scandals he publicly attributed to the United States, such as the
Olympic doping scandal and the
Panama Papers. Putin sought to use the leaks of politically damaging material in the US as a method of tarnishing the image of the United States. In addition, Putin also held a personal
vendetta against former-Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton for what he saw as her personal hand in a
series of protests in Russia from 2011 to 2012 as well as remarks by Clinton that Putin held were maligning. According to the report, when a Clinton victory appeared likely, Russia shifted its strategy from aiding Trump's candidacy to sabotaging Clinton's legitimacy, and questioning the trustworthiness of the election. Notably, the Putin government also surmised that their actions would contribute to Russia's aim of threatening and eroding the "US-led liberal democratic order" which Russia views as a threat to its country and the regime. ==Release and reception==