U.S. Intelligence Officials Are Saying That Russian Officials Celebrated When Trump Won

U.S. Defense Under secretary for Intelligence Marcel Lettre (L), Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and National Security Agency Director U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Rogers testify before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on foreign cyber threats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 5, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Washington Post: U.S. intercepts capture senior Russian officials celebrating Trump win

Senior officials in the Russian government celebrated Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for Moscow, according to U.S. officials who said that American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.

The ebullient reaction among high-ranking Russian officials — including some who U.S. officials believe had knowledge of the country’s cyber campaign to interfere in the U.S. election — contributed to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow’s efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House.

Other key pieces of information gathered by U.S. spy agencies include the identification of “actors” involved in delivering stolen Democratic emails to the WikiLeaks website, and disparities in the levels of effort Russian intelligence entities devoted to penetrating and exploiting sensitive information stored on Democratic and Republican campaign networks.

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WNU Editor: The U.S. intelligence community did not have to intercept Russian communications to know what Russia's top officials were thinking .... they were making their opinions very well known before the election .... Who Would Putin Vote For. Clinton Or Trump? (July 5, 2016). More here .... A Look At Where Clinton And Trump Stand On Russia (August 6, 2016). But the best one that I have is way back in March .... Is The Kremlin Hoping For A President Donald Trump? (March 25, 2016). In the final analysis, the reason why the Kremlin was more favourable towards Trump over Clinton was because of this .... Russia Scholar Stephen Cohen Shuts Down CNN Host Who Tries To Link Trump To Putin (July 31, 2016). As to Russian officials celebrating Trump's victory .... I would say that this is incorrect. They were not celebrating .... they were relieved that Hillary Clinton had lost.