WASHINGTON, U.S. - Even as one of the most controversial post-election weeks draws to a close - America is still engaged in heated debate on the new revelations that the nation has come face to face with over the last few days. 

Except, in this debate, half of the panel is shocked and the other half seems to be blinded.   

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for one, is trying his best to downplay the explosive U.S. intelligence report, that could have otherwise, through the hands of the American media, managed to outrage every citizen of the country. 

On Friday, U.S. intelligence released an unclassified report on the role of Russia in the U.S. election outcome shortly after briefing president-elect Donald Trump on its conclusions.

Since then, the explosive findings of the report have received lesser attention than Trump’s reactions to it. 

In its report, the intelligence agencies laid down their case for how and why Russia sought to influence the 2016 election, specifically aimed at helping the Republican nominee and discrediting his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The report stated, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

It went on to add, “We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavourably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.”

“When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency,” the report read.

There was also mention of the personal motivation behind Putin's working toward preventing Clinton from becoming president.

"He has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and... holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him," the report stated.

According to intelligence agencies, Russian military intelligence used intermediaries such as WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com and the Guccifer 2.0 personal to release emails that it had acquired from the Democratic National Committee and top Democrats as part of the effort.

The report said the operation went for "targets associated with both major U.S. political parties."

The report assessed with "high confidence" that the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, had used those intermediaries to release “U.S. victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks."

It noted that Russia's state-sponsored news agency Russia Today (RT) "has actively collaborated with" WikiLeaks, which published the leaked documents and emails hacked from Democrats during the presidential campaign.

In addition, the report also revealed that “Moscow also saw the election of President-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).” 

According to U.S intelligence, this was another motivating factor for the meddling by Russia.

In a strategic move immediately after the release of this document’s findings and to win over the initial outcry that was sure to follow - Trump vowed to get tough on the hacking, without directly addressing the Russian involvement.

He said, "Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organisations, including the DNC.”

Carefully adding, “There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines," Trump said.

He even pledged to form a task force to address cyber threats within 90 days of taking office.

Then, as the debate was kept alive on both traditional and social media, Trump said on Saturday, “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing."

He added, “We have enough problems without yet another one.”

In a series of tweets, he even labelled those who think otherwise as “stupid people or fools.”

With the new cabinet to take charge and Trump all prepared to take office on January 20 - it remains to be seen if he will directly address the findings of the country’s intelligence agencies on Wednesday, in his first press conference since being elected as the 45th President of the United States.

Baltasar Gracian