Russia interfered in US presidential election as revenge against Hillary Clinton, former US ambassador claims

Former top diplomat says Vladimir Putin held grudge against Mrs Clinton after thinking she interfered with his election

Russia interfered in last month’s US presidential election to get revenge on Hillary Clinton, a former US ambassador to Moscow has claimed.

Michael McFaul, who was the US representative to Russia from 2012 to 2014, said Russian President Vladimir Putin suspected Mrs Clinton of interfering in Kremlin elections during her time as US Secretary of State.

Asked what Russia's motivation for the alleged interference might be, Mr McFaul told NBC: “I think it’s two things: one is revenge against Secretary Clinton. Let’s remember that Vladimir Putin thinks that she intervened in his election – the parliamentary election in December 2011.

“[He] has said as much publicly and I’ve heard him talk about it privately.""

He said Russia may also have helped Donald Trump because they share many of the same policies.

Mr McFaul said: “President-elect Trump supports a lot of foreign policy positions that Vladimir Putin supports…and so it’s very rational, in my view, that [Putin] would rather see President-elect Trump be the next President of the United States instead of Secretary Clinton”.

“Russia has this capability and they’re motivated for political purposes to do these kinds of things.

"We really do need this bipartisan, independent investigation that others are calling for."

US intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded with “high confidence” that Russia was responsible for hacking Democratic Party computers and leaking thousands of private documents by handing them to WikiLeaks.

Sources said they believed this was intentionally designed to help Trump, given Republican Party computers had also been hacked but their contents not released.

A government source told The New York Times: “We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. [Democratic National Committee] and the R.N.C. [Republican National Committee], and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republican Party.

The conclusions led Barack Obama to order a full investigation into the alleged hacking, with a report due to be handed to the President before he leaves office next month.

Mr Trump has repeatedly rubbished reports Russia intervened to help him during the election campaign and his transition team dismissed the latest findings by intelligence agencies.

In a statement they said: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

“The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”

In the months leading up to the November 8 election, in which Mr Trump pulled off an unexpected victory over Mrs Clinton, Wikileaks published thousands of private emails sent by Democratic officials and John Podesta, the chair of the Clinton campaign.

The messages contained a number of embarrassing revelations, including speeches Mrs Clinton made to Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs in which she said she had “both a public and a private position” on banking reform.

The emails also contained suggestions a CNN staff member had given Mrs Clinton’s campaign, but not Mr Trump’s, advance warning of debate questions, and that the Democratic Party had interfered in its own primary in order to help Mrs Clinton against her rival, Bernie Sanders.