Russia hacked Republican Committee emails, U.S. concludes

 Officials from two US intelligence agencies have told leading newspapers that they believe that Russia had a direct hand in Donald Trump's electoral victory.

The New York Times reports the agencies as having a "high confidence" about Russian involvement in hacking of email servers, a conclusion also reached by the CIA and reported in the Washington Post.

Senior administration officials quoted by the New York Times say they are confident that Russian hackers also infiltrated the Republican National Committee's computer systems as well as those of the Democratic Party, but did not release information gleaned from the Republican networks.

Quoting an unnamed "senior US official", the Washington Post said "intelligence agencies" had "identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman".

At one point in the campaign, Mr Trump publicly encouraged Russia to "find" Mrs Clinton's emails, although he later said he was being sarcastic.

President-elect Trump's camp has dismissed the CIA claim, arguing that the agency had also once said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Russian officials have, likewise, repeatedly denied accusations of hacking.

On Friday incumbent US President Barack Obama ordered an investigation into cyber-attacks, blamed on Russia, that occurred during the US election season. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said President Obama wanted the investigation carried out on his watch. It is unclear as to whether the contents of the review will be made public.

The attacks targeted Democratic Party emails and those of a key aide to presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Democrats had lashed out when email accounts belonging to the Democratic National Committee and Mrs Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, were hacked.

Intelligence agencies say the Russians passed on the Democrats' documents to WikiLeaks, the Times reported. The Podesta emails were revealed by WikiLeaks and posted online.

Democrats claimed the hacks were a deliberate attempt to undermine Mrs Clinton's campaign.