President Obama said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against further meddling in the U.S. presidential election after the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“At the beginning of the summer, we were alerted to the possibility that the DNC has been hacked,” he said Friday during his final White House press conference of 2016.

“In early September, when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure [more hacking] didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, and there was going to be some serious consequences if he didn’t. And in fact, we did not see further tampering in the election process.”

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Obama said he wanted to avoid seeming partisan as suspicion mounted that Russia was interfering in the 2016 race between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonDemocratic groups using Bloomberg money to launch M in Spanish language ads in Florida The Hill's Campaign Report: Presidential polls tighten weeks out from Election Day More than 50 Latino faith leaders endorse Biden MORE and GOP nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE.

“I wanted to make sure that everyone knew we were trying to play everything straight. We weren’t taking one side or the other. That’s exactly how we should have handled it. Imagine if we had done the opposite. It would have become just one more political scrum," he said.

Obama additionally said that once WikiLeaks obtained stolen documents from the DNC and other Democratic sources, the damage was already done.

“The information was already out. It was in the hands of WikiLeaks. The information was going to come out no matter what.”

Obama came very close to personally blaming Putin for the hacking campaign.

Asked whether he believes the Russian leader was behind efforts to help elect Trump, Obama replied, “Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."

He added that the intelligence he has seen "gives me great confidence that the Russians have carried out this hack."

But he stressed that he wanted to give the intelligence community time to compile a formal review of the hacking activity before making a formal determination.

“When the report comes out before I leave office, that will have drawn together all the threads and so I don’t want to step on their work ahead of time," Obama said.

A CIA assessment has reportedly concluded Russia intruded upon the 2016 campaign in an attempt to help Trump claim victory.

According to reports, intelligence agencies have identified multiple individuals who leaked hacked documents from several Democratic sources to WikiLeaks.

Trump frequently touted WikiLeaks revelations on the campaign trail before his shocking White House win last month.

The president-elect has since called reports Moscow aided him “ridiculous” and “another excuse” from disappointed Democrats. Russia has denied the allegations.

Jordan Fabian contributed.

- Updated at 3:45 p.m.