Trump had irrefutable texts and raw evidence Putin ordered Russian hacks as early as January 2017: NYT

According to the New York Times, two weeks prior to the Presidential Inauguration in Jan. 2017, Donald Trump was shown raw evidence including data and text messages about the Russian hack and that Vladimir Putin knew about it. He has since been trying to cloud the evidence for reasons still not yet know.

The Times says Trump "was shown highly classified intelligence" proving Putin had personally ordered the 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."

At the time, Trump "sounded grudgingly convinced," according to several who attended the briefing. Since then, Trump has taken another tactic that calls into question both his judgement and his reasons for continuing to kowtow to Russia over American national security.

"The shifting narrative underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump regularly picks and chooses intelligence to suit his political purposes. That has never been more clear than this week," The Times wrote.