HACKING: Five things to watch for in Russia hearings.

Here’s one:

What evidence does the IC have that Putin wanted to assist Trump?

The CIA reportedly believes that Russia was explicitly trying to help Trump — raising politically explosive questions about the degree to which it succeeded.

Publicly, the administration has been much more circumspect.

“President Obama and this administration is 100 percent certain in the role that Russia played in trying to sow discord and confusion and getting involved, through the cyber domain, in our electoral process,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN Tuesday.

Reports of the CIA’s stronger assessment are based on anonymous leaks to a number of publications.

The leaks have given ammunition to critics who say the Obama administration is trying to undercut Trump before he takes office on Jan. 20.

“There are real questions about why there have been so many leaks over the last seven or eight weeks from the administration about the motivations or the intentions of Vladimir Putin or other foreign leaders,” Cotton said Tuesday.

While we’re at it, let Senate committee ask about the truth of the information released by Wikileaks, and get that on the record.