On Dec. 9, The Washington Post reported that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.” In an effort to parse the competing claims around this story, Russia Matters brings you this special edition of Russia in Review. Below you will find the claims themselves and the reporting or statements that support or dispute them from major media outlets, key officials and assorted experts and commentators.

UPDATE: On the day following this posting, our colleagues from the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project published one of the best reviews of Russian cyber operations and their implications for America to date: "Russia and Cyber Operations: Challenges and Opportunities for the Next U.S. Administration." Anyone who cares about the topic should read this paper. Also on Dec. 13, the New York Times published its own "examination ... of the Russian operation—based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response."

Claim 1: The U.S. Intelligence community is said to have concluded with "high confidence" that the Russians hacked computers of U.S. political organizations and email communications of individuals involved in the U.S. presidential campaign.

• Reporting/statements supporting or otherwise validating this claim:
  • On Oct. 7, the U.S. intelligence community officially accused Moscow of seeking to interfere in the election through the hacking of "political organizations." Though the statement never specified which party, it was clear that officials were referring to cyber-intrusions into the computers of the Democratic National Committee (D.N.C.) and other Democratic groups and individuals. (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • New York Times: “This much is known: In mid-2015, a hacking group long associated with the F.S.B. — the successor to the old Soviet K.G.B. — got inside the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems. In the spring of 2016, a second group of Russian hackers, long associated with the G.R.U., a [Russian] military intelligence agency, attacked the D.N.C. again, along with the private email accounts of prominent Washington figures like John D. Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. Those emails were ultimately published — a step the Russians had never taken before in the United States, though the tactic has been used often in former Soviet states and elsewhere in Europe. That moved the issue from espionage to an ‘information operation’ with a political motive. One person who attended a classified briefing on the intelligence said that the investigators had explained that the malware used in the cyberattack on the D.N.C. matched tools previously used by hackers with proven ties to the Russian government.” (New York Times, 12.10.16)
  • American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • Unnamed U.S. officials: “Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.” (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • Obama's counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco: "We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned.” During her remarks, Monaco didn't address the latest CIA assessment, which hasn't been previously disclosed. (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
    • Earlier this fall Obama dispatched Monaco, FBI Director James B. Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to make the pitch for a "show of solidarity and bipartisan unity" against Russian interference in the election, according to a senior administration official. (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said on Dec. 12 that he supported congressional investigations of possible Russian cyberattacks to influence the American election, setting up a potential conflict with President-elect Donald Trump. In September, during a secret briefing for congressional leaders, McConnell voiced doubts about the veracity of the intelligence. (New York Times, 12.12.16, Washington Post, 12.12.16)
  • Sen. James Lankford (Republican-Oklahoma): "Cybersecurity investigation of Russian interference can't be partisan.” (Washington Post, 12.12.16)
  • Senators John McCain (Republican-Arizona), Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina), Jack Reed (Democrat-Rhode Island) and Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York):"Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American.” (RFE/RL, 12.11.16)
    • Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Dec. 12 that there was “no doubt about the hacking” by Russian intelligence services into Democratic campaign accounts, which he called “another form of warfare.” (New York Times, 12.12.16)
  • Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: “We know that Russian actors stole data from people working at the Democratic National Committee. We also know that Russian hackers were probing computers that contained information on voter registration, and poking around at actual voting machines and tabulators.” (Washington Post, 12.10.16)

• Reporting/statements disputing this claim:
  • Donald Trump: “I don't believe they interfered. That became a laughing point — not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, 'Oh, Russia interfered.’ It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country.”
    (Washington Post, 12.09.16, Washington Post, 12.09.16. New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • Some key Republican lawmakers have continued to question the quality of evidence supporting Russian involvement. "I'll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there's clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence — even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it." (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • John Bolton, a former UN ambassador reportedly being considered for deputy secretary of state in the Trump administration: “It's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary's server but their dumb intelligence services against the election? … I do think it's critical to answer the question I posed: If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints?" (Washington Post, 12.12.16)
  • Wall Street Journal editorial: “Intelligence community is said to have concluded with ‘high confidence’ that the Russians did the hacking to help elect Mr. Trump. But we're told the evidence for this conclusion is far from definitive, and multiple intelligence services offered no such judgments when briefing the House Intelligence Committee on the election-related hacks last week.” (Wall Street Journal, 12.11.16)
  • Financial Times editorial: “It is true that a full review of the hacks has not been completed, and the public has been given no new information. The extent of the hacks may turn out to be limited. The CIA may be mistaken.” (Financial Times, 12.11.16
• On the fence:
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee's chairman, Richard Burr (R-N.C.), said Dec. 11 that the panel "will continue to conduct vigorous oversight of all intelligence matters." But he made no specific mention of Russia. (Washington Post, 12.12.16)

Claim 2: Russian hacks aimed not just to discredit the U.S. presidential elections but to get Donald Trump elected.

• Reporting/statements supporting or otherwise validating this claim:
  • CIA briefers told the senators in the week of Nov. 27-Dec. 3 that it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
    • Central Intelligence Agency officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald Trump president… It is unclear why the C.I.A. did not produce this formal assessment before the election, although several officials said that parts of it had been made available to President Obama in the presidential daily briefing in the weeks before the vote. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • Unnamed U.S. intelligence official: "It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected. That’s the consensus view." (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • One intelligence official said there were indications in early October that the Russians had shifted their focus to harm Mrs. Clinton. (New York Times, 12.10.16)
  • Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public evidence alone made it clear that Moscow had intervened to help the “most ostentatiously pro-Russian candidate in history. … If the Russians were going to interfere, why on earth would they do it to the detriment of the candidate that was pro-Russian?” Mr. Schiff asked. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • New York Times editorial: “New disclosures by American officials now reveal that intelligence agencies concluded with ‘high confidence’ that a desire to undermine American faith in the electoral system morphed into an effort to hurt Mrs. Clinton's chances. One critical piece of evidence for this assessment was that suspected Russian hackers broke into the computer networks of both the Republican and Democratic national committees, but only leaked damaging emails from the latter.” (The New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: “We also know that WikiLeaks and others published data stolen from John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, in order to try to damage further the Democratic candidate.” (Washington Post, 12.10.16)
  • Chris Suprun, a Texas delegate, told Foreign Policy magazine he has been feverishly working the phones to convince electors committed to Trump to switch their votes when the college meets to cast their ballots and formalize the Republican’s presidency. “Donald Trump fails the basic test of fitness for office,” said Suprun, who represents a state that Trump won. “My job is [to] get electors [to] not see themselves as rubber stamps for the Kremlin. … The founders gave us the tools to make sure that we don’t make a bad decision.” (Foreign Policy, 12.10.16)

• Reporting/statements disputing this claim:
  • The Trump transition team: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • Donald Trump: “I think it's ridiculous. I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it.” (RFE/RL, 12.11.16)
  • Some top Republican congressmen have said the same, although with less bombastic language, arguing that there is no clear proof that the Russians tried to rig the election for Mr. Trump. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • The CIA presentation to senators about Russia's intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency's assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered. For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin "directing" the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were "one step" removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. (Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • There is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected. A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Mr. Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said. … The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
    • The FBI is not sold on the idea that Russia had a particular aim in its meddling. "There's no question that [the Russians'] efforts went one way, but it's not clear that they have a specific goal or mix of related goals," said one U.S. official. (Washington Post, 12.11.16)
    • "The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards — can we prove this in court," one of the officials said. "The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means 'we're pretty damn sure.' It doesn't mean they can prove it in court." (Washington Post, 12.11.16)
    • FBI has refused to publicly endorse the CIA’s assessment on the election. (Foreign Policy, 12.10.16)
      • Officials say the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. have not always shared their findings with the F.B.I., which they often distrust. (New York Times, 12.10.16)
  • Wall Street Journal editorial: “Keep in mind that almost no one thought Mr. Trump would win the election, and it's hard to believe the Russians were the sole prophetic exception. The hacking began last spring, and the Russian motive could have been to gather information to embarrass or blackmail Clinton officials once they were in office. The Kremlin could also merely have wanted to sow confusion and doubt on the election result.” (Wall Street Journal, 12.11.16)

Claim 3: Russians have hacked both Democrats and Republicans, but released data only on the former.

• Reporting/statements supporting or otherwise validating this claim:
  • American intelligence officials believe that Russia also penetrated databases housing Republican National Committee data, but chose to release documents only on the Democrats. The committee has denied that it was hacked. (New York Times, 12.11.16)
  • Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: “We also know that WikiLeaks did not publish similar kinds of data from the Trump campaign or the Republican Party.” (Washington Post, 12.10.16)
• Reporting/statements disputing this claim:
  • Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, who will be Trump's chief of staff in the White House, said no Republican Party computers or information had been hacked, something the party had confirmed with the FBI. "The Russians didn't tell Hillary Clinton to ignore Wisconsin and Michigan," Priebus told host George Stephanopoulos. "She lost because her ideas were bad. Donald Trump won in an electoral landslide that had nothing to do with the Russians." (Washington Post, 12.11.16, RFE/RL, 12.11.16)
  • A spokesman for the Republican National Committee, Sean Spicer, disputed the report in The Times that the intelligence community had concluded that the R.N.C. had been hacked. “The RNC was not ‘hacked,’” he said on Twitter. “The @nytimes was told and chose to ignore.” (New York Times, 12.10.16)
  • Wall Street Journal editorial: “The New York Times cites claims from its sources that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee website but then didn't leak any documents. But other sources say that while it's clear the Russians were probing the RNC website, it isn't clear they penetrated it enough to grab emails. This is in contrast to the months the Russians spent roaming through the DNC site.” (Wall Street Journal, 12.11.16)