THE White House accused US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday of being in the Kremlin’s pocket, claiming it won him the election.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was the “consensus view” of the intelligence community that Russian agents had interfered in the November election by hacking the email account of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.

“You didn’t need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious Russian cyberactivity,” Mr Earnest said.

“The president-elect did not call it into question. He called on Russia to hack his opponent. He called on Russia to hack Secretary Clinton,” he claimed.

However, the FBI and officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not concur with the assessment from the CIA.

Mr Trump called the accusations “ridiculous” at the weekend.

Mr Earnest claimed Mr Trump’s appointee as national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, was once an employee of Russian broadcaster RT — perhaps on the basis of his invitation to a 2015 RT gala dinner in Moscow.

And he alleged Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had “extensive lucrative personal financial ties to Russia” — a possible reference to his lobbying work for since-deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell said an inquiry would be conducted by the Senate intelligence panel.

The allegations came ahead of Mr Trump’s appointment of fellow businessman Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson — who has negotiated extensive deals in Russia — as his secretary of state yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he was ready to meet Mr Trump “at any moment.

“It’s widely known that the elected president of the United States has publicly called for the normalisation of the Russian-American relationship,” he said. “We cannot but support this.

“We understand it will not be a simple task considering the extent of degradation of the Russian-American relationship. But we are prepared to do our bit.”

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said the Podesta emails were not hacked but leaked by a whistleblower in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The latest round of allegations comes ahead of Monday’s electoral college vote to formally elect the president, who will be sworn in on January 20.

Recent weeks have seen open talk of an unprecedented coup by “faithless electors” defying their mandate from voters to appoint Ms Clinton instead. But Mr Trump’s position was strengthened on Monday when a recount in Wisconsin state, paid for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, confirmed his narrow victory there by an extra 131 votes.

“The Dems and Green Party can now rest,” he tweeted. “Scam!”