"Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election."
"The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information GLEANED FROM A TOP-SECRET SOURCE CLOSE TO MR. PUTIN, WHO HAD DESCRIBED TO THE C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation."
"Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed."
Moving on.
"According to nearly a dozen people who either attended the meeting with the president-elect OR WERE LATER BRIEFED ON IT, the four primary intelligence officials described the streams of intelligence that convinced them of Mr. Putin's role in the election interference."
"They included stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee that had been seen in Russian military intelligence networks by the BRITISH, DUTCH and AMERICAN intelligence services. Officers of the GRU had plotted with groups like WikiLeaks on how to release the email stash"
"And, ultimately, several human sources had confirmed Mr. Putin's own role."
"That included one particularly valuable source, who was considered so sensitive that Mr. Brennan had declined to refer to it in any way in the Presidential Daily Brief during the final months of the Obama administration, as the Russia investigation intensified."
"Instead, to keep the information from being shared widely, Mr. Brennan sent REPORTS (plural) FROM THE SOURCE to Mr. Obama and a small group of top national security aides in A SEPARATE, WHITE ENVELOPE to assure its security."
