US President-elect Donald Trump has responded to a slew of US election-related sanctions against Russia with a call for the country to “move on” and a conciliatory pledge to meet the US spy chiefs he has harshly criticised.
“It's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump said on Thursday, echoing previous prickly reactions to allegations his November win over Hillary Clinton was somehow tainted by Russian interference.
Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situationDonald Trump
Obama Orders Sanctions
President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered a series of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia over the hacking which US officials say was aimed at disrupting the November election.
Trump has long treated such accusations as a thinly veiled effort by a Democratic president to delegitimise a Republican victory.
FBI Releases Detailed Report
The Federal Bureau of Investigation squarely blamed Russian intelligence services on Thursday for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, releasing the first most definitive report yet on the issue, including samples of malicious computer code said to have been used in a broad hacking campaign.
Starting in mid-2015, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, the FSB, emailed a malicious link to more than 1,000 recipients, including US government targets, the FBI said in a 13-page report co-authored with the Department of Homeland Security.
Russia has consistently denied the hacking allegations.
According to the FBI report, among the groups compromised by the FSB hacks was the Democratic National Committee, which was again infiltrated in early 2016 by another Russian agency, the military GRU.
(With inputs from PTI and Reuters)
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