Trump defends Russia outreach amid US intel criticism

US intelligence officials are convinced that Russia meddled in the presidential race. But that hasn't changed President-elect Donald Trump's call for warmer relations with Moscow.
Trump declared in a series of tweets yesterday that "only 'stupid' people or fools" would come to a different conclusion.
"Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing," he stated from Trump Tower, adding: "We have enough problems without yet another one."
American intelligence officials on Friday briefed the president-elect on their conclusions that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election in order to help him win the White House.

An unclassified version of the report explicitly tied Russian President Vladimir Putin to election meddling and said that Moscow had a "clear preference" for Trump in his race against Hillary Clinton.
Trump has repeatedly sought to downplay the allegations, alarming some who see a pattern of skepticism directed at US intelligence agencies and a willingness to embrace Putin.

There has been no official comment from Moscow on the report, which was released as Russia observed Orthodox Christmas.
But Alexei Pushkov, an influential member of the upper house of parliament, said on Twitter that "all the accusations against Russia are based on 'confidence' and suppositions. The USA in the same way was confident about (Iraqi leader Saddam) Hussein having weapons of mass destruction."

Margarita Simonyan, the editor of government-funded satellite TV channel RT who is frequently mentioned in the US report, said in a blog post: "Dear CIA: what you have written here is a complete fail."
During the election, Trump praised the Russian strongman as a decisive leader, and argued that the two countries would benefit from a better working relationship though attempts by the Obama administration at a "Russian reset" have proved unsuccessful.
At the same time, intelligence officials believe that Russia isn't done intruding in US politics and policymaking. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russia began a "spear-phishing" campaign to try to trick people into revealing their email passwords, targeting US government employees and think tanks that specialise in national security, defense and foreign policy, the unclassified version of the report said.

The report said Russian government provided hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
The website's founder, Julian Assange, has denied that it got the emails it released from the Russian government. The report noted that the emails could have been passed through middlemen.