The US's spy chief says he would not put it past Russia to plant child pornography on Americans' computers.

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, was talking to a Senate committee hearing into Russian cyber attacks during the US election.

He was answering questions after earlier saying he was confident that Russia hacked Democratic Party emails and was still engaged in cyber operations.

The hearing panel, convened by the Senate Intelligence Committee, was told that the hacking conclusions had been based on "human sources, technical collection and open source information".

Mr Clapper said much of the intelligence community's report could not be revealed in order to protect sensitive sources and methods.


US spy chief Clapper: Russian cyber war ongoing

But, he added, Russia had tried to influence elections in a "couple of dozen" countries.

He was asked about other countries where elections are due to take place soon but said he could not say to what extent Germany, France and the Netherlands had increased their defences against cyber attacks.

He said he believed that the Russians had concluded that it was best to support then Republican candidate Donald Trump because he was a businessman and "he'd be easier to make deals with" than the Democrats.

He also said that he wouldn't "put it past" Russia to plant indecent images of children on the computers of American citizens.

FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Democratic National Committee denied "multiple requests" made by his agents to examine its hacked servers.

How the US election was 'hacked'

He said he had "no doubt" that Russian hackers accessed voter data from state election systems.

Mr Comey also said there were indications that Russian hackers had penetrated the Republican National Committee's computers, but did not get far as the hack was "limited" as the "old RNC" servers were "no longer in use".

The RNC and President-elect Trump have said the Russians did not attack the Republicans because they have strong cyber security.

There was no evidence that Mr Trump's campaign was successfully hacked, he added.