title:  Secret Report: Top Russians Celebrated Trump Win
text: A secret report from U.S. intelligence agencies, which was revealed through a senior government official, shows that the top tier of the Russian government had a big celebration when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. The report from the Washington Post confirms earlier information and data about the Russian reaction.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.A picture continues to emerge around the Russian effort to meddle in the election to get the outcome they wanted. Earlier reports sourced to multiple U.S. intelligence agencies show that the Russians, under Vladimir Putin, employed hackers to break into the accounts of multiple figures associated with the Democratic Party. Most particularly, the hackers went after John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton 2016 campaign and long-time Clinton ally. After they got into his emails, they passed them along to the team at WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is headed by Julian Assange, who long has held a grudge against Sec. Clinton, President Obama, and the United States. The Podesta emails were then released by WikiLeaks and timed specifically to be repeatedly featured in national headlines for weeks on end.Those leaks were used by Trump and the Trump campaign as fodder for an effort to attack Clinton s character and honesty, which, when coupled with other campaign coverage and missteps, helped to hurt her approval ratings and votes.Despite these revelations, Trump has refused to accept the information as uncovered by the CIA and other agencies. Instead, Trump has sided with the Russian government and WikiLeaks over the U.S. government that he will lead in two weeks. He has blamed the Democrats for not making their servers secure enough, and even argued that couriers should be used instead of electronic communications.While some Republicans have bucked their party leader over Russian interference, and, along with Democrats, pushed the Senate to establish an independent investigation like those used with Watergate and Benghazi to look into Russian interference, the majority of Republicans have followed Trump in minimizing Russian interference, preferring instead to keep up attacks on Democrats.Featured image via Wikimedia Commons