Russia cyberhacking US election dismissed as ‘ridiculous’ by president-elect

President-elect Donald Trump doubled down Monday in dismissing CIA intelligence that Russia interfered in the US election, even as leading senators from both camps demanded a broad probe on the apparent national security threat.

Trump repeated his rejection of Central Intelligence Agency conclusions, reported in US media over the weekend, that Moscow had sought to bolster the Republican's White House campaign with the release of hacked Democratic party documents.

"Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!" Trump said in a tweet.

"Unless you catch 'hackers' in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn't this brought up before election?"

Trump earlier called the findings "ridiculous" and dismissed the news as a partisan effort by Democrats to refight the election they lost.

But leading senators from both parties said there were serious indications Russia had sought to undermine the US democratic system and called for a bipartisan probe.

Republican Sen. John McCain said on CBS television Monday that there was "no doubt" about the hacking.

"It's another form of warfare and the entire issue is going to be examined by the Armed Services Committee because it's a threat to our national security," he said.

McCain said the investigation should stretch across armed services, intelligence and foreign relations committees in Congress, aiming to get a full picture of the story.

Speaking later, Mitch McConnell, the powerful Senate majority leader, appeared to dampen that plan, saying the issue should be handled by the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose leader Richard Burr has been silent on the issue since the reports first appeared on Friday.

But McConnell spoke out strongly against any foreign interference, saying, "Obviously any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts."

"The Russians are not our friends," he said.

Trump-CIA rough start

US intelligence had previously linked Russia to leaks of damaging emails from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign but saw it as a broad bid to undermine confidence in the US political process. 

On Friday, however, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has since concluded that the aim of the cyber intrusions was to help Trump win.

The report came on the heels of President Barack Obama's order to review all cyber attacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle amid growing calls from Congress for more information on the extent of Russian interference.

Trump's rejection of the CIA conclusions reverberated throughout the intelligence community, signaling a likely rough start to relations between the White House and the spy agency when the president-elect takes office on Jan. 20.

"He believes that the CIA is a political institution and he's going to have to learn that it's not. It is apolitical," said former deputy CIA director Michael Morell on the "CBS This Morning" show.

"It's going to tell him how to think about the world in a way that is divorced of politics and divorced of policy. And he's going to have to start understanding that."

Meanwhile Moscow on Monday dismissed the accusations of Russian election interference as "unfounded."

"Not one of these absolutely baseless allegations is supported by any kind of information, let alone evidence," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 

Cybersecurity experts meanwhile rebuffed Trump's assertion that the source of the hacks was not clear.

Dmitri Alperovitch, whose CrowdStrike firm detected the Russian intrusion at the Democratic National Committee in May, said in a tweet that his company was "able to watch everything they [the intruders] did for weeks in May while we were planning full remediation."

"They were caught in the act. That's why we have malware samples," added Matt Tait, another expert.

Secretary of state pick questioned

The scandal raised new questions about whether Trump's apparent favored choice for US secretary of state, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson, will be able to pass Senate confirmation.

Tillerson's extensive business dealings on behalf of the oil giant with the Russian state and Putin have raised deep-conflict-of-interest questions. Putin bestowed Russia's Order of Friendship on Tillerson in connection with Exxon Mobil's activities.

McCain said Monday that he is concerned about Tillerson's relationship with the Russian president.

"Vladimir Putin is a thug, a murderer, a KGB guy, who only wants to restore the Russian empire," McCain said.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, which must approve the nomination, tweeted, "Being a 'friend of Vladimir' is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #secretary of state."