U.S. officials: Vladimir Putin personally involved in election hack

(Image credit: Sergei Karpukhin/AFP/Getty Images)

Senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News Wednesday they have a "high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed how material hacked from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used before the election.

The intelligence came from spies working for U.S. allies and diplomatic sources, the officials said. In 2011, Hillary Clinton cast doubts on the integrity of Russia's parliamentary elections, and Putin had a "vendetta" against her, a high-level intelligence official told NBC News. The effort then morphed into an attempt to highlight corruption in American politics and "split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn't depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore." The CIA has since assessed the Russian government wanted Donald Trump to get elected. Read the entire report at NBC News.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.