WASHINGTON—The nation’s top intelligence official faces questioning on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about a report that fingered the Kremlin in hacking during the presidential campaign.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is appearing before the Senate intelligence committee, where lawmakers’ questions will expose the underlying debate over the future of U.S.-Russian relations. Clapper also addressed the Russian interference when appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week ahead of the report’s release.
The declassified report explicitly tied Russian President Vladimir Putin to the hacking of email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. The report said Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid “trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services, although there was no suggestion such operations affected the actual vote count.
The report lacked details about how the U.S. learned what it says it knows, such as any intercepted conversations or electronic messages from Russian leaders, including Putin. It also said nothing about specific hacker techniques or digital tools the U.S. may have traced back to Russia in its investigations.
