Trump acknowledges Russian hacking even as he attacks U.S. intelligence community

NEW YORK - President-elect Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time here Wednesday that Russia was responsible for hacking the Democratic Party during last year's election, but he denied that the leaks were intended to boost him and argued that Moscow would cease cyber attacks on the United States once he is sworn in.

In a rollicking hour-long news conference, Trump furiously denounced as "fake news" the reports that Russia had obtained salacious intelligence that could compromise him. He suggested that any damaging information collected by Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration would already have been released - and he celebrated what had leaked out about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"As far as hacking, I think it was Russia," Trump said. "Hacking's bad and it shouldn't be done. But look at the things that were hacked, look at what was learned from that hacking."

Allowing his hostility and contempt toward the U.S. intelligence community to again burst into public view, Trump also reaffirmed his belief - first expressed in a tweet earlier Wednesday morning - that intelligence officials were behaving as though they were in "Nazi Germany" with what he termed "disgraceful" leaks to the media. The Anti-Defamation League said Trump was trivializing the Holocaust and asked for him to apologize.

Trump made a series of promises but provided little specific evidence on how he would deliver them. He vowed to repeal and replace President Obama's Affordable Care Act quickly and nearly simultaneously ("could be the same hour"); to start building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico before convincing the Mexican government to pay for it ("that will happen, whether it's a tax or whether it's a payment"); and unveiled how he is disentangling himself from management of his massive business empire while still refusing to divest himself of his financial interests.

Trump also said he planned to announce a nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia within two weeks of his Jan. 20 inauguration, having already reviewed a list of about 20 candidates. And he promised to bring jobs to the states that supported him in November, calling himself "the greatest jobs producer that God ever created."

Trump repeatedly lashed out at the news media. He shushed correspondents from CNN - "You are fake news," he hissed at them - which broke the news late Tuesday that Trump and Obama had been briefed on allegations that Russian intelligence services have compromising material and information on Trump's personal life and finances.

He also went after BuzzFeed, which published a document Tuesday outlining some of the unverified allegations, which were based on research done by an outside entity engaged in political consulting work and led by a former high-ranking British intelligence official. Trump called BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage" and warned it would "suffer the consequences" for publishing the dossier.

Some 300 journalists packed into the lobby of Trump Tower for the president-elect's first full-fledged news conference since July 27, when among other pronouncements Trump urged the Russian government to find and release tens of thousands of Clinton's private emails.

Six months later, the subject of Russian hacking still clouds Trump's transition to power, and questions about the hacking attacks dominated Wednesday's news conference. At first, Trump refused to say whether he or anyone on his campaign had been in contact with Russia, but he clarified as he left the news conference, telling reporters near the elevators that neither he nor his team had any contact with Russia about his campaign.

On cyber attacks, he said his administration would produce within 90 days a major report on how to stop the hacking "phenomena."

He also argued that Russia hacked the Democrats because "the Democratic National Committee was totally open to be hacked."

Trump claimed credit for instructing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, his incoming White House chief of staff, to invest in ordering "a very, very strong hacking defense," and said the Russians had tried to hack his party's internal systems but "were unable to break through."

FBI Director James Comey said at a hearing Tuesday that none of the RNC's current computer networks were hacked but that old email servers that were no longer being used were penetrated.

Like many Trump productions, Wednesday's news conference was strategically staged and cast. Aides carried out heaps of papers in manila folders, which Trump said were the legal documents transferring management of his many business interests over to his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.

Midway through the news conference, Trump turned over the lectern to Sheri Dillon, a tax adviser at the Philadelphia-based law firm Morgan Lewis, who read a lengthy statement explaining Trump was giving up management of the Trump Organization and shifting his assets into a trust managed by Donald Jr. and Eric Trump while he serves as president.

However, Trump will not sell his business or his stake. He also said he would continue to refuse to release his tax returns for public review. "The only ones that care about my tax returns are the reporters," Trump said.

Trump's company, which has a vast array of licensing deals, buildings, golf courses and other properties around the globe, will make no new foreign deals while he is in office, Dillon said. Any new domestic deals would undergo vigorous review and require approval by an independent ethics adviser.

As Dillon explained the nuances of the new arrangement, Trump stood off to the side appearing restless and perhaps bored, at one point ducking out of camera view to take a sip of water.

Yet Trump soon returned to center stage, parrying questions on a range of subjects before drawing the cameras to focus on the display of papers and folders. He said they were "just a piece of the many, many companies" being put into a trust to be run by his sons.

"I hope at the end of eight years I'll come back and say, 'Oh, you did a good job,' " Trump said, as his sons looked on admiringly.

But Trump couldn't resist a final flourish. "Otherwise, if they do a bad job," he continued, "I'll say, 'You're fired!' "