Report: Trump saw evidence in January 2017 of Putin ordering election hack

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
(Image credit: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images)

During a meeting in Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017, Donald Trump, just weeks from being inaugurated as president of the United States, was shown highly classified intelligence that indicated Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered cyberattacks to influence the 2016 U.S. election, The New York Times reports.

Trump was briefed by former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Adm. Michael Rogers, the former director of the National Security Agency. The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information from a source close to Putin who covertly told the CIA how Russia executed its disinformation and hacking campaign.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

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.