For months, evidence has mounted that the Russian government used its hacking prowess to interfere with the US presidential election, stealing emails from Democrats and and leaking them via Wikileaks. The Obama Administration formally accused Russia of hacking the Democrats two months ago.

Now the Central Intelligence Agency is going even further, according to reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times. In a “closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week,” intelligence officials told senators that “it was now ‘quite clear’ that electing Trump was Russia’s goal.”

The reason, according to the Times and Post summaries of the CIA’s reasoning, is that the Russians appear to have also hacked computer systems belonging to the Republican Party. But whereas the Democrats’ emails found their way to Wikileaks, Republican emails stayed under wraps.

–Timothy B Lee
CIA report: Russia hacked the Democrats to help Trump