The Washington Post has investigated the possibility of a Russian government-backed attempt to undermine the U.S. election by spreading fake news about the 2016 election, including a false claim that Donald Trump created a fake news story about Hillary Clinton’s health.
The Post reported Monday that the Post obtained the internal documents and reports from an intelligence contractor working for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is overseeing the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.N. election.
The intelligence reports were part of the ongoing intelligence community inquiry into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the U,S.
presidential election and the potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The documents are the latest in a series of efforts to corroborate the ODNI’s assessment of Russian involvement in the election.
One of the ODNIs most prominent findings in recent weeks was that Russia tried to use social media platforms to sway the election in favor of Trump, according to the Post.
The report also detailed an ODNI assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directed a team of Russian hackers to hack into the accounts of Democratic political operatives and release damaging information about Clinton.
“It is clear that a Russian intelligence operative or groups were able to hack Democratic Party email accounts and disseminate documents from those accounts to the public, including Democratic officials,” the ODNF report stated.
The Office of Special Counsel, which is led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has also been investigating Russian interference in the presidential election, the Post reported.
The investigation was launched by Mueller after a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was revealed in October to have met with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner in June 2016 to discuss providing damaging information on Clinton.
The news about Veselniteskaya was initially published in July 2017 by The New York Times, which reported the meeting.
In late September, Trump Jr., then a campaign surrogate, released a series in which he and Trump Jr.-connected campaign officials said they were presented with the information from Veselnitkskaya, but that they would be required to tell their father’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, before it was released.
The emails in question are believed to have been hacked by Russian operatives, according the Post, and it has not been confirmed that any of them were part a foreign government.
However, the emails do appear to have contained damaging information regarding the Clinton campaign, and they included information about Trump.
The President’s eldest son is being investigated by the FBI for possible collusion with Russia to influence the election, according a report published Monday.
The FBI, which has said that no evidence of collusion has been found, said in its report that its probe has found no evidence to support allegations that members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.
It is unclear if the information was obtained by a third party.
The Washington Examiner has previously reported that the FBI and ODNI have received intelligence reports on Russian involvement, and the Post said Monday that one of the intelligence reports included a draft of an ODNI assessment that was obtained through the FBI’s investigation.
The ODNI said in a statement to the AP that it is reviewing the report and the report has been made public in accordance with OLC regulations.
“The ODNI has the authority to determine whether an intelligence assessment exists that a foreign power or a group acting through a foreign principal, or a foreign actor, is attempting to influence an American election,” ODNI spokesperson Brian Leary said.
The office of Director of Intelligence Director Mike Pompeo said in an email to the Washington Examiner that the agency does not comment on individual intelligence reports and does not know of any report in the public domain that the ODIC has received.
The CIA has also said it is aware of the report, but did not say whether it had received it.
The Intelligence Community’s Office of Security Assessment, the agency that conducts the assessment on which the ODNAI is based, is also reviewing the reports and has not yet decided whether it is prepared to publish them, the Office said.
“Our assessments are designed to inform the President’s national security decision making,” the Office added.
The Trump administration has been criticized by some for what some in Congress have described as an insufficient response to Russia’s election interference.
A report released Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee said that Trump has failed to take the necessary steps to protect the U for himself and his family, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has a business in Russia.
“Mr. Kushner has received significant financial and personal benefit from Russian state-owned entities that have been involved in a range of nefarious activities in Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries,” the report said.
That report also said that Jared Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, had attended a meeting with Russian officials at the Trump Tower in New York in July 2016.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Committee, Sen. Richard
