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| Russia 'poses major threat' to US , intelligence officials tell Senate hearing on hacking | Russia 'poses major threat' to US , intelligence officials tell Senate hearing on hacking |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| US intelligence officials have told Congress that Russia is "full-scope actor" that poses a "major threat" to US government, military, diplomacy, and infrastructure. | |
| Top officials met on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on "Foreign Cyber Threats to the United States" to share their findings on the hacks against the Democratic Party and Russia's alleged involvement. | |
| President-elect Donald Trump has been critical of the intelligence community's assessment since it became public in December. In fact, Mr Trump aligned himself with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who published the contents of the DNC hack, followed by emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in the final months of the election. | |
| "Julian Assange said 'a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta' - why was the DNC so careless?" Mr Trump tweeted. "Also said the Russians did not give him the info." | |
| However, US Director of National Intelligence said that Mr Assange should not be given any credibility – adding that he put US lives in danger. | |
| Mr Clapper expanded on the scope of the Russian campaign against the US, per the intelligence community. | |
| "The hacking was only one part of it," he said. "It also entailed classical propaganda, disinformation, fake news." | |
| Mr Clapper added: "We have no way of gauging the impact ... it had on the choices the American electorate made. Whether or not that constitutes an act of war is a very heavy policy call that i don't believe the intelligence community should make. But it certianly would carry, in my view, great gravity." | |
| The hearing comes a week after President Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for their alleged role in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and their effort to influence the US election. Mr Obama imposed the sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies and expelled 35 suspected Russian spies. | |
| Officials are expected to release a declassified report of their findings to the public on Monday. |