In a rare show of nerve, the Obama administration publicly accused Russia of being behind a wave of hack attacks on the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and federal government sites, and for supplying activist organizations such as WikiLeaks with confidential government information they later made public.

Like Us on Facebook

The administration on Friday squarely blamed the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is known to hold Obama in deep contempt for Obama's perceived lack of nerve, for this recent wave of cyber attacks and email leaks.

It said the Russian goal was "to interfere with the U.S. election process." Washington said it had found "direct links" to Putin's government based on forensic analysis.

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations," said the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a statement.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."

As might be expected, Moscow dismissed the U.S. charges as "nonsense."

The Russian government is being accused of being behind a series of pre-election hacks and leaks and the theft of classified material prepared for briefings of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The U.S. linked Moscow to leaks made by WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com and Guccifer 2.0 that made public emails from the DNC and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others.

Last July, WikiLeaks revealed 20,000 emails from top DNC officials ahead of the Democratic Party's national convention. Since then numerous hacks and leaks have been linked to Russia.

The federal government also confirmed a recent spate of attacks probing state election systems originated on servers operated by a Russian company.

A senior administration said intelligence officials are convinced the Putin government is behind attempted hacks on election systems.

Sen. Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee  and a fierce critic of Russia, said there must be consequences.

"Today was just the first step -- Russia must face serious consequences. Moscow orchestrated these hacks because Putin believes Soviet-style aggression is worth it," said Sasse.

"The United States must upend Putin's calculus with a strong diplomatic, political, cyber, and economic response."

TagsRussia, hacking, United States, Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks, Vladimir Putin, Sen. Ben Sasse