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Russia has compromised Donald Trump but withheld information for political gain
CNN is reporting that classified documents presented last week to President Barack Obama and Donald Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromised personal and financial information of the President-elect Donald Trump.
According to multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings, the allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was added to the larger report about the Russian election hacking.
Senior intelligence officials included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats. This synopsis was not an official part of the report from the intelligence community case about Russian hacks, but some officials said it augmented the evidence that Moscow intended to harm Clinton’s candidacy and help Trump’s, several officials with knowledge of the briefings told CNN.
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CNN confirmed that Trump received this report, but is not aware if he was fully briefed on this. The Trump transition team has not commented on the recent news.
One high level administration official told CNN, “I have a sense the outgoing administration and intelligence community is setting down the pieces so this must be investigated seriously and run down. I think [the] concern was to be sure that whatever information was out there is put into the system so it is evaluated as it should be and acted upon as necessary.”
Trump friends in touch with Russia during the campaign
The CNN report also noted that “that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.”
