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Washington – Four billionaires, three generals, a handful of women and nothing but conservatives: President-elect Donald Trump is building a super-rich, unorthodox and largely white inner circle to run the United States from January 20.

They include a retired general whose salty language and warrior’s determination earned him the nickname “Mad Dog”; a professional-wrestling magnate whose husband was once body-slammed by Trump himself and the wife of the most powerful member of the US Senate.

Trump has yet to announce his picks for some key posts – most notably secretary of state — but several of his choices strongly suggest he is prepared to upset the political order that has dominated Washington for the last eight years.

Many incoming cabinet members have railed against the worker protections and environmental and corporate regulations that President Barack Obama has enacted.

Of the 13 people so far chosen for his cabinet or for cabinet-rank positions, most are white males, like his base supporters. Three are women, two are Asian-American, one is black and none are Hispanic.

Trump has offered cabinet posts to several billionaires and multi-millionaires, sending a strong signal that he is happy with Wall Street exerting a renewed influence over the US economy. They include Wilbur Ross, a private equity financier who made a fortune buying bankrupt companies and flipping them for huge profits, for secretary of commerce.

Future education secretary Betsy DeVos is a mega donor who has long promoted taxpayer-funded alternatives to public schools, while Linda McMahon, tapped to head the Small Business Administration, helped grow her husband’s WWE wrestling promotion operation into a global phenomenon.

A fourth billionaire in Trump’s inner circle, Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, will serve as deputy secretary of commerce.

Multi-millionaire Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner who has funded Hollywood blockbusters, is the soon-to-be Treasury secretary, while the wealthy fast food executive Andrew Puzder has been picked as secretary of labour.

Trump defended his decision to put “some of the most successful people in the world” into his cabinet.

“One newspaper criticised me: why can’t they have people of modest means?” Trump told supporters in Iowa on Thursday.

“Because I want people that made a fortune! Because now they’re negotiating with you, okay?”

Meanwhile, a secret CIA assessment has found that Russia sought to tip last month’s US presidential election in Trump’s favour, The Washington Post reported on Friday, a conclusion that drew an extraordinary rebuke from the president-elect’s camp.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s transition team said, launching a broadside against the spy agency.

“The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”

The Washington Post report comes after President Barack Obama ordered a review of all cyber attacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle, amid growing calls from Congress for more information on the extent of Russian interference in the campaign.

The newspaper cited officials briefed on the matter as saying that individuals with connections to Moscow provided anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks with emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief and others.

Those emails were steadily leaked out via WikiLeaks in the months before the election, damaging Clinton’s White House run.

The Russians’ aim was to help Donald Trump win and not just undermine the US electoral process, the paper reported.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” the newspaper quoted a senior US official briefed on an intelligence presentation last week to key senators as saying. “That’s the consensus view.”
CIA agents told the lawmakers it was “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post, citing growing evidence from multiple sources.

However, some questions remain unanswered and the CIA’s assessment fell short of a formal US assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies, the newspaper said.

For example, intelligence agents don’t have proof that Russian officials directed the identified individuals to supply WikiLeaks with the hacked Democratic emails.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied links with Russia’s government.