Donald Trump went after 'embarrassed' Democrats for focusing on Russian-backed election year hacking on Friday, describing the resulting flare-up as a 'witch hunt' against him.

And he said on Twitter that he has asked Republican leaders in Congress to investigate how NBC News was able to see a top-secret report on the cyber attacks before he was briefed on it.

The president-elect complained in an interview with the New York Times, about the intense focus on the Russian hacking, which the U.S. intelligence community has said was directed from the highest levels of the Russian government, just hours before he was to be briefed by top intelligence officials on election interference.

'China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,' Trump told the paper, referencing a hack of the files of the Office of Personnel Management, a topic that came up in Thursday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on cyber attacks.

'How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt,' he said.

WITCH HUNT! President-elect Donald Trump complained about the focus on Russian hacking during an interview with The New York Times on Friday

Trump fumed that 'politics' were to blame for NBC getting the inside scoop on the report, which said that Russia did hack DNC and leaked emails to WikiLeaks to affect election

Trump continued his Thursday rant by asking why 'The Democratic National Committee would not allow the FBI to study or see its computer info after it was supposedly hacked by Russia'

Trump brought back the phrase later in the interview.

He described the focus on the subject as Democratic sour grapes, on a day when a handful of Democrats were set to object to his win when Congress meets to certify the electoral votes for president.

'They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan,' said Trump.

'They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this,' he said.

The White House dismissed Trump's choice of words. Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday afternoon: 'I guess I would leave it to his team to characterize exactly what that means.'

Earnest cited 'a desire' inside the Obama administration 'to make sure that we're holding accountable those who were engaged in some of those nefarious acts.'

Trump expected an intelligence briefing on Friday afternoon from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, National Security Agency director Mike Rogers and FBI director James Comey featuring evidence that points to Moscow-controlled agents as the hacking culprits.

But NBC News and The Washington Post were both able to report on the briefing's contents Thursday night.

Trump was livid.

Trump said on Twitter that he is asking committee chairs in Congress to investigate how NBC got early access to the intel report before he was briefed on its contents, and WikiLeaks claimed the Obama administration and the CIA were behind the disclosures

'How did NBC get "an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented?" Who gave them this report and why? Politics!' he wrote on Twitter.

Later in the day he upped the stakes, tweeting: 'I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it.'

Hours earlier the official WikiLeaks Twitter account had claimed that 'the Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET//COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it.'

'POETUS' stands for President-Elect Of The United States. 'COMINT' is shorthand for communications intelligence, the kind of raw information gathered over the Internet.

Trump has repeatedly questioned the government's assessment that Russian hackers were behind the computer intrusions.

An intelligence report requested by President Obama that the president got briefed on Thursday provides new evidence reportedly based on signals intelligence that revealed top Russian officials celebrating over Trump's election win.

Trump made his comments on a day he was to be briefed by top intelligence officials. He also met with top people at the offices of Conde Nast in New York

Vladimir Putin's inner circle celebrated after Donald Trump won the US election and were aware of hacks in intercepted messages, according to a newly released US intelligence report

At the first presidential debate in September, Trump said: 'I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. [Hillary Clinton is] saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't – maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?'

A new intelligence report says Russian President Vladimir Putin had initially wanted to call the US election into doubt, but later decided to actively promote Trump. It doesn't say if Russian hacks actually won him the vote

Trump did say he wanted to stop foreign hacking into the U.S.

He told the Time: 'With all that being said, I don’t want countries to be hacking our country. They’ve hacked the White House. They’ve hacked Congress. We’re like the hacking capital of the world.'

Trump repeated his complaint, which he also argued online, that the intelligence community's assessment was impugned by the FBI's failure to gain access to the Democratic National Committee's server after it was hacked.

'The DNC wouldn’t let them see the servers. How can you be sure about hacking when you can’t even get to the servers?' Trump asked.

Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway told CNN Friday opponents were focusing on the hacking to undermine Trump's legitimacy.

'Speaking of disparagement, I really believe there are those out there who are trying to delegitimize his presidency, review the election results and you know it,' she said.

Trump once again referred to the content of the hacks, rather than stressing who might have done the hacking, bringing up emails that appeared to show acting DNC chair Donna Brazile passing debate questions to the Hillary Clinton camp.

'How come nobody complains about that? he asked.