Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections was a declassified report released in January 2017. The report was a compilation of assessments from the CIA, FBI, and NSA. US officials said that what was revealed to the public was a declassified version of another “highly classified assessment” that only a small group of people had been briefed on.1

President Obama faced pressure to either “put up or shut up” on the Russia matter.² In the overly partisan postelection atmosphere, there were both Republicans and Democrats who denied Russian interference. Law enforcement and US intelligence sources told me then that the Obama administration was trying to get as much information out as possible before the transfer of power. My intelligence sources were telling me that there were concerns in the Obama administration that the incoming Trump administration would attempt to bury some of the evidence.³

In the report, US intelligence agencies determined that “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US Presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.”⁴

On January 6, the CBS News Washington Bureau and my team of producers were busy combing through the declassified document. Producers Andy Triay, Katie Ross Dominick, Julia Kimani Burnham, and I highlighted what we thought were the new revelations. We had already reported some of the information.

The declassified version was about to cause tremors across America. I imagined the classified version would have caused an 8.0 magnitude earthquake had it been released.

The report was stunning, an incredible read. It walked through the analytic process of the information-gathering apparatus of the intelligence community in an attempt to dispel the notion that US officials had just somehow pulled the data from out of thin air. The report was put together using a range of sources and methods. In intelligence circles, that usually means that the FBI, CIA, or NSA was involved at some level, and that they used human intelligence—spies or informants—to collect the data. Or somehow NSA hackers were able to breach computer databases to find the information.

One of the most stunning features of the report noted that Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” aimed at the 2016 US presidential election.5 When the report was issued, CBS News and other news outlets had described what US investigators believed was Putin's goal, but an official report from the intelligence agencies hits closer to home for a skeptical public. The report noted that “Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”⁶ By all accounts, Putin despised Hillary Clinton. He was motivated to destroy her as a candidate and as a president, if she were elected.

It was a grudge match. US officials believe that Putin hated Clinton because he believed she had tried to “influence” events in Russia against him. In 2011, the Russian leader accused the United States and Clinton specifically of stirring up protests in Russia. “She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work,” Putin told supporters at the time.⁷

Fast-forward to the 2016 election, and at the time most expected Clinton to win. Without weighing too much into politics, most political observers, most Washington insiders, a great many in law enforcement and the intelligence community, and many in the Obama administration thought she was going to win. How could she not win, especially going up against an unproven, undisciplined, unorthodox, un-just-about-everything candidate like Donald Trump?

But Trump had the right mix of what the voters were looking for at the time. He was the Washington antidote. His very nature rubbed the Washington insiders the wrong way, and in 2016 that was a winning formula. I remember talking to one of my old teammates from Miami University of Ohio. I played football there, and most of my teammates hailed from the Buckeye State. They were hardworking, salt of the earth guys. In a phone call early on in 2015, one of them told me he was pulling for Trump. Trump wasn't leading the GOP pack at the time, and I was puzzled by what my old teammate was saying. He insisted that he wanted someone to “blow up Washington!” I was stunned by how much he despised Washington and what it stood for to him and how he was tired of the gridlock. Donald J. Trump was going to be his voice in Washington. And he was going to tear things up.

That message resonated. But the Russian interference certainly helped. What the Russian operation did was amplify the Trump campaign's message. It also injected division into the campaign, tossing the Clinton camp into more turmoil. US officials were seeing signs relatively early on in 2016 that Putin was “out to get” Clinton, but they were slow to act. Again, in our overly partisan campaign atmosphere, they were pussyfooting around Putin's beef with Clinton, because they didn't want to be accused of interfering on her behalf.

US officials assessed in the declassified report that Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-Elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.8

• They assessed that the Russian government tried to improve Trump's chances of winning the election “by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

  The most public example of that was Russia's disclosure of stolen Democratic Party data and emails. US officials determined that the Russian government used online personas like Guccifer 2.0 (later determined to be a Russian intelligence officer),⁹ DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release the data and emails. Most of it targeted Clinton in one way or another. Then once the stolen data and emails were out in public, social media users and Russian trolls retweeted and spread the information. It created a tsunami of negative headlines for Clinton that, ultimately, she could not recover from and deepened the damage done by her own self-inflicted wounds.

• US officials also determined that “Moscow's approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia's understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.” For that, according to the declassified report they used the same type of tactics, blending “covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or ‘trolls.’”

Here are some of the examples mentioned in the US report:10

• In August, Kremlin-linked political analysts suggested avenging negative Western reports on Putin by airing segments devoted to Secretary Clinton's alleged health problems.
• On 6 August, RT published an English-language video called “Julian Assange Special: Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That'll Put Clinton in Prison?” and an exclusive interview with Assange entitled “Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money.” RT's most popular video on Secretary Clinton, “How 100% of the Clintons’ ‘Charity’ Went to…Themselves,” had more than 9 million views on social media platforms. RT's most popular English[-]language video about the President-elect, called “Trump Will Not Be Permitted To Win,” featured Assange and had 2.2 million views.

Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers, agents, and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin. This was, of course, much different because technology had made it more potent. Cyberspace took Russian actions to another level. Some of the ads that kept popping up on social media took direct aim at Clinton. One ad touted a petition to remove Clinton from the presidential ballot. It said, “Disavow support for the Clinton political dynasty.” That ad was being pushed by a fake group called Donald Trump America. The Russians were behind that. Another ad from a Russian-controlled organization announced a rally in May 2016 to “Stop Islamization of Texas.” The Russians were behind that one as well. And there were tens of thousands of more toxic Russian-backed ads in the atmosphere. It is estimated that the posts by Russian-backed Facebook groups alone reached up to 126 million Americans. “I don't think you get it,” California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein said when asked about the impact of the Russian operation on social media. “What we're talking about is a cataclysmic change. What we're talking about is the beginning of cyberwarfare. What we're talking about is a major foreign power with sophistication and ability to involve themselves in a presidential election and sow conflict and discontent all over this country.”11

But perhaps the most important target of the Russian influence campaign was the state and local electoral boards. US officials in the declassified report concluded that “Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access” to the electoral boards. “DHS assessed that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.”¹² But could that be said with certainty? What were the Russians really up to when they were scanning and probing voter databases? Multiple sources told me that federal and congressional investigators were trying to determine if by scanning and probing the voter databases the Russians were trying to gather intelligence that could later be used to target ads on social media. One state election official told me it was a possibility that made sense given all of the information available in a voter database.