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This post has been updated with a defiant statement from the Trump transition team.

The Washington Postis now reportingthat the CIA has concluded something widely suspected but never flatly stated by the intelligence community: that Russia moved deliberately to help elect Donald Trump as president of the United States not just to undermine the U.S. political process more generally.

The Post's report cites officials whosay they have identified individuals connected to the Russian government who gave WikiLeaks emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and top Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta. One official described the conclusion that this was intended to help Trump as the consensus view.

The report highlights and exacerbates the increasingly fraught situation in which congressional Republicans find themselves with regard to Russia and Trump. By acknowledging and digging into the increasing evidence that Russia helped or at least attempted to help tip the scales in Trumps favor, they risk raising questions about whether Trump would have won without Russian intervention.

Trump, after all, won by a margin of about 80,000 votes cast across three states, winning each of the decisive states by less than one percentage point.So even a slight influence could have plausibly made the difference, though we'll never be able to prove it one way or another.

CIA briefers told senators in a closed-door briefing it was now "quite clear" that electing Trump was Russia's goal, according to officials. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

While saying that Russia clearly tried to help Trumpdoesn't inherently call into question the legitimacy of Trump's win earlier Friday, the White House made sure to emphasize thatit's not making that case it's not hard to connect the dots. And Trump and his party know it. The Post's report cited Republicans who expressed skepticism about the available evidence when presented with it in September, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In addition,any GOP effort to dig into the matter risks antagonizingthe president-elect, who has said flatly that he doesnt believe Russia interfered with the election, despite receiving intelligence briefings to the contrary. And he's proved more than willing to go after fellow Republicans who run afoul of him.

On the other hand, if Republicans play down the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power that significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress do not trust and which, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyberwarfare with the United States.

Already, House Democrats have begun pushing forsomething akin to the 9/11 Commission to look into allegations of Russian meddling. During the campaign, they pushed for hearings on the same issue.

Until this week, they'd beenunable to get much buy-in from congressional Republicans. But Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) voiced support for a probe on Wednesday, and now Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he is working with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on a wide-ranging Senate probe, as The Posts Karoun Demirjian reportedThursday.

Im going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia, Graham said. I think theyre one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin personally to pay the price.

But even as these probesstart to materialize, Trump is singing a far different tune. In his interview with Time magazine for his Person of the Year award, Trump suggested that the interference could just as well have come from someone in New Jersey as from the Russian government.

I dont believe they interfered, Trump said. That became a laughing point not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, Oh, Russia interfered.

Trump added: It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.

Trump also maintained over and over again on the campaign trail that he wanted a better relationship with Russia and praised Putin as a strong leader while minimizing Russias favoritism for his campaign. And he did all of this at a time when Putin was very unpopular in the United States and even as the evidence was pointing in the direction of Russian meddling.

In other words, Trump has shown that he's committed to seeing the best in Russia, and it's unlikely another report from the dishonest media citing anonymous sources is going to change his mind.

And Trump has every reason to continue to dig in. He doesnt want to breathe any life into the story line that he owes his election to Russian interference. Trump, after all, is a winner, and the idea that someone else might have won it for him just won't fly.

Update: A statement from Trump's transition team, as expected, took a defiant tone about The Post's report: 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. Its now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'

But for congressional Republicans, the evidence is increasingly getting to the point where they simply cant ignore it, and some of them are feeling compelled to act in a way that Trump isnt likely to embrace.

Compounding the dilemma for these Republicans is that many GOP and Trump voters are disinclined to think Russia meddled in the election. A poll released Friday by Democratic pollster Democracy Corps showed 55 percent of Trump voters and Republicans who didnt vote for Trump say its probably true that stories alleging Russian interference in the election are conspiracy theories pushed by Clinton.

Many Republicans are undoubtedly concerned about this. But as long as Trump is holding fast to the idea that this is all made up in an effort to undermine him, this whole thing could reinforce the long-standing chasm within the GOP, with him and his base pitted against establishment Republicans who will (again) be made to look like theyre trying to take down their outsider president-elect. And you can bet thatll be how Trump pitches it.

It all presents a possibly inauspicious start for the GOP Congress in the Trump era: a potential Trump vs. congressional-Republicans-battle over the same election that surprisingly installed him as president.

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The CIA concluded Russia worked to elect Trump ...