Officials: U.S. obtained conclusive evidence after election that Russia leaked emails

U.S. officials had concluded months earlier that Russian intelligence agencies had directed the hacking, but had been less certain that they could prove Russia also had controlled the release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The timing of the additional intelligence is important because U.S. President Barack Obama has faced criticism from his own party over why it took his administration months to respond to the cyber attack. U.S. Senate and House leaders, including prominent Republicans, have also called for an inquiry…

They said the post-election intelligence gave the Obama administration greater certainty about the full role of the Russian government in the hacking and leaks of documents than it had on Oct. 7, when the U.S. intelligence agencies had said they were “confident” Russia orchestrated the hacking…

The officials declined to describe the intelligence obtained about the involvement of a third-party in passing on leaked material to WikiLeaks, saying they did not want to reveal how the U.S. government had obtained the information.