White House Asks ‘Deception Committee' to Study Russian Hacks

The classified national study is being conducted by the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee

The White House has ordered a special intelligence task force to examine the implications of Russia's recent hacks of U.S. political organizations, U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News.

The classified national study is being conducted by the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee, a Cold War-era organization that is part of the Director of National Intelligence, the officials said.

The committee traditionally has advised the DNI on foreign attempts to thwart U.S. intelligence through trickery. But in the cyber era, the committee has increasingly looked at how nation states use computer attacks to conduct espionage and spread propaganda.

The consensus among U.S. intelligence analysts is that Russia can't directly manipulate the American presidential elections, but that Vladimir Putin's intelligence services may be seeking to undermine confidence in the U.S. system through the hacks.

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