US Director of National Intelligence to publish Russian hacking review evidence

A bipartisan report examining the extent of Russia's influence on the US election will be made available to the general public before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.

"Once the review is complete in the coming weeks, the Intelligence Community stands ready to brief Congress," according to a statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The findings will also be made "available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods". The ODNI issued the statement on 14 December.

The Intelligence Community review answers calls this week for the US government to back-up claims made in a secret CIA report. It said Russia influenced the 2016 election in a concerted effort to support President-elect Donald Trump's campaign. The report's findings were shared with the Washington Post on 9 December by sources who had been briefed on it.

"Senior Administration Officials have regularly provided extensive, detailed classified and unclassified briefings to members and staff from both parties on Capitol Hill since this past summer," the ODNI statement said.

The review centres on hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta, which occurred throughout the spring and summer.

A security firm that investigated the hacks shared their findings with the FBI and US Intelligence Community. Their work traced the hacks – with a high degree of certainty – back to Russian intelligence agencies. US officials have publicly supported these findings, and emails stolen from the Democrats were published by WikiLeaks throughout the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump dismissed the Intelligence Community review of Russia's impact on the election as simple partisan politics on 12 December. "Unless you catch 'hackers' in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Former UN ambassador John Bolton, who has been advising Trump on foreign policy and security issues, called the review "politicized" and speculated the hacking could have been a "false flag" operation perpetrated by the Obama administration.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is helping lead the review, appeared on CNN on Wednesday (14 December) to say Russia's involvement in hacking is true. Graham claimed that Russia had hacked his own email account. "They hacked into my campaign account," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "I do believe the Russians hacked into the [Democratic National Committee]. I do believe they hacked into [John] Podesta's email account," he said.

While Graham believes Clinton lost the election because she was a lesser candidate, "I do believe that all the information released publicly hurt Clinton and didn't hurt Trump," he said.

"What we should do is not turn on each other but work as one people to push back on Russia," Graham urged. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue."