US President-elect Donald Trump accepts the US intelligence community's conclusion that Russia engaged in cyber attacks affecting the US presidential election and may take actions in response, his incoming chief of staff said today.
Reince Priebus said Mr Trump believes Russia was behind the intrusions into the Democratic Party organisations, though he did not clarify whether the president-elect agreed that the hacks were directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"He accepts the fact that this particular case was entities in Russia so that's not the issue," Mr Priebus said on Fox News Sunday.
Mr Priebus' comments marked a significant shift away from the repeated dismissals by Mr Trump of Russian interference in the presidential election.
Mr Trump has rebuffed claims that Russia was behind the hacks or was trying to help him win, saying the intrusions could have been carried out by China or a 400-pound hacker in the US.
Today's comments were the first acknowledgment from a senior member of the president-elect's team that Mr Trump has accepted that Russia directed the hacking and subsequent disclosure of Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential election.
With less than two weeks to his inauguration, Mr Trump has come under increasing pressure from fellow Republicans to accept intelligence community findings on Russian hacking and other attempts to influence the election.
A crucial test of Republican support for Mr Trump comes this week with the first confirmation hearings of his cabinet picks.
A US intelligence report released last week said Mr Putin directed a sophisticated influence campaign including cyber attacks to denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and support Mr Trump.
The report concluded vote tallies were not affected by Russian interference but did not assess whether it influenced the outcome of the 8 November vote in other ways.
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has flown to New York for meetings with senior members of Mr Trump's team just hours after the British Prime Minister Theresa May labelled the US president-elect's comments about groping women "unacceptable".
Mr Johnson was due to meet Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the president-elect's chief strategist Steve Bannon as the British government stepped up efforts to forge links with the incoming administration.
Ms May, who is expected to meet the next occupant of the White House in the spring, said she has had two "very good, positive" conversations with Mr Trump.
But challenged about the 2005 tape recording of Mr Trump bragging to TV host Billy Bush about women and how he could "grab them by the *****" because of his celebrity status, Ms May was blunt in her response.
Asked "as a woman" how she felt about the comments, Ms May said: "I think that's unacceptable, but in fact Donald Trump himself has said that and has apologised for it.
"But the relationship that the UK has with the United States is about something much bigger than just the relationship between the two individuals as president and prime minister.
"That's important, but actually we have a long-standing special relationship with the United States.
"It's based on shared values and it is a relationship where, actually in the UK, we feel we can say to the US if we disagree with something that they are doing," said Ms May.
