Intelligence officials confirmed Friday that the FBI agrees with the CIA's assessment that Russia mounted a covert operation intended not just to disrupt the 2016 election, but to help Trump win. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, said “Russians were trying to elect a lap dog” by backing Trump through the series of cyberhacks. advertisement | advertise on newsday 
 
 “I think the Russians clearly intervened in the election and I think that . "What I said was baffling, Chuck, was on October 7, as the Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper, Jay Johnson, director of Homeland Security, went out and said, 'The Russians are trying to interfere in our election,' Director Comey counseled against that. | AP Photo Podesta suggests Trump associates may have colluded with Russian hackers 
 
 Former Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta said Sunday he believes that Donald Trump's associates may have colluded with Russian hackers to win the election. "Let's go through the chronology. / Updated By Liz Johnstone 
 
 John Podesta, former chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, said Sunday that the FBI first contacted him about his hacked emails two days after WikiLeaks began publishing them — and that he has not heard from the FBI since. He has not had any further contact with the FBI, he said.
– John Podesta continued his assault on the FBI on Sunday, telling Meet the Press that he only heard from the bureau once about his hacked emails—and that was two days after WikiLeaks started dropping them. The timeline, per Podesta: On Oct. 7, the controversial Access Hollywood tape depicting Donald Trump dropped; "One hour later, WikiLeaks starts dropping my emails into the public," Podesta says. "One could say that those things might not have been a coincidence. Two days later, the FBI contacted me, and the first thing the agent said to me was, 'I don't know if you're aware but your email account might have been hacked.' I said, yes, I was aware of that." That, he says, "was the last time I'd heard from the FBI." “I think the Russians clearly intervened in the election and I think now that we know both the CIA and the FBI agree the Russians intervened to help Trump and Vladimir Putin was personally involved with that," Podesta continued, per Politico and Newsday. "It was distorted by the Russian intervention. A foreign adversary directly intervened into our democratic institution and tried to tilt the election to Donald Trump." Podesta contends that while "the Russians were trying to elect a lapdog," it's unclear whether Trump himself knew what was going on, but that "I think the electors have the right to know what the answers are."