![\"Director](\"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/uselection.jpg\")
<\/a>Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing: “Foreign Cyber Threats to the United States.” (AP Photo\/Evan Vucci)<\/p><\/div>Washington \u2014 Brushing aside Donald Trump\u2019s dismissiveness, the nation\u2019s intelligence chief insisted Thursday that U.S. agencies are more confident than ever that Russia interfered in America\u2019s recent presidential election. And he called the former Cold War foe an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to the nation.
\nDid Russian hacking sway the results? There\u2019s no way for U.S. agencies to know, said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.
\nAsked about the possible effect of the disclosure of private information stolen by hackers, Clapper said, \u201cThe intelligence community can\u2019t gauge the impact it had on the choices the electorate made.\u201d But he did say Russian hacking \u201cdid not change any vote tallies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clapper\u2019s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee was short on concrete evidence of Russian activities, but it raised the stakes in the intelligence community\u2019s standoff with Trump. Clapper indicated the agencies he leads would not back down in their assessment, even if that threatens a prolonged crisis of confidence with their next commander in chief.
\nThat puts the pressure back on Trump, who has raised the possibility of more positive relations with Russia and has repeatedly disparaged the U.S. intelligence agencies. He will be briefed Friday on the classified evidence concerning Russian interference. Shortly after Thursday\u2019s hearing, news leaked that Trump would soon name former Republican Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana to replace Clapper after the new president takes office.
\nThe intelligence agencies\u2019 classified report, which was shared with President Barack Obama on Thursday, identifies multiple motives for Russia\u2019s interference, Clapper said, but he did not provide details.
\nThe Washington Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials, reported Thursday that intelligence agencies have identified parties who delivered stolen Democratic emails to WikiLeaks. The officials also said there were disparities between efforts to infiltrate Democratic and Republican networks, and said the U.S. intercepted communications in which Russian officials celebrated Trump\u2019s victory. It was not clear which of those details are included in the classified report.
\nIn a joint report that roiled the presidential campaign last fall, the Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the U.S. was confident about foreign meddling, including Russian government hacking of Democratic emails.
\n\u201cWe stand actually more resolutely on the strength of that statement,\u201d Clapper said Thursday. He declined to discuss whether Russia\u2019s interference was aimed at helping Trump win.<\/p>\n
An unclassified version of the report will be released next week, Clapper said. That version, expected to be a fraction of the length of the classified one, is not likely to answer all the questions about Russia\u2019s actions. Exactly how the U.S. monitors its adversaries in cyberspace is a closely guarded secret, since revealing such details could help foreign governments further obscure their activities.
\n\u201cI think the public should know as much about this as possible,\u201d Clapper told the senators. \u201cAnd so we\u2019ll be as forthcoming as we can, but there are some sensitive and fragile sources and methods here.\u201d
\nClapper was less shy about declaring Russia \u201can existential threat to the United States.\u201d That\u2019s strong rhetoric that harkens back to the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union, language Obama has avoided. For his part, Trump has embraced the possibility of warmer U.S.-Russian ties.
\nRepublican John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate panel, pressed Clapper as to whether Russia\u2019s actions constituted an \u201cact of war.\u201d The intelligence director said that was \u201ca very heavy policy call,\u201d more appropriate for others in the government to decide.
\nObama announced sanctions against Russia late last year, a move Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said was akin to throwing a pebble.
\n\u201cI\u2019m ready to throw a rock,\u201d Graham said.
\nThe GOP is divided over how to deal with Russia. Once Trump takes office, he is certain to face opposition from Democrats as well as some in his own party regarding his posture toward Russia.
\nTrump has criticized U.S. intelligence findings, even citing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s contention that Russia did not provide him with hacked Democratic emails.
\nBut in new tweets early Thursday, he backed away and blamed the \u201cdishonest media\u201d for portraying him as agreeing with Assange, whose organization has been under criminal investigation for its role in classified information leaks. \u201cThe media lies to make it look like I am against \u2018Intelligence\u2019 when in fact I am a big fan!\u201d Trump wrote.
\nIn fact, Trump has been skeptical to the point of dismissive about the certainty of the assessment of Russian hacking, bringing up past failures, specifically intelligence reporting the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the lead-up to the war there.
\nTrump has derided the intelligence community on Twitter, his comments widely reported by The Associated Press and other news organizations.
\nClapper said Thursday, \u201cI think there is an important distinction here between healthy skepticism, which policymakers \u2014 to include policymaker No. 1 \u2014 should always have for intelligence, but I think there\u2019s a difference between skepticism and disparagement.\u201d -AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington — Brushing aside Donald Trump’s dismissiveness, the nation’s intelligence chief insisted Thursday that U.S. agencies are more confident than ever that Russia interfered in America’s recent presidential election. And he called the former Cold War foe an “existential threat” to the nation. Did Russian hacking sway the results? There’s no way for U.S. agencies to know, said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Asked about the possible effect of the disclosure of private information stolen by hackers, Clapper said, “The intelligence community can’t gauge the impact it had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5266,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions\/5266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}