Jazz Shaw:
Liberals were all aflutter last night when news broke indicating that our intelligence agencies “knew” that the Russian government was not only behind the hacking of DNC emails last year, but were actively releasing them in an effort to help elect Donald Trump. Or at least that’s the impression you’d get from the spin being applied to the story. What’s more, the CIA allegedly released this information to Congress prior to the election in a secret meeting, but word of it never made it out to the public. (Washington Post)
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
The person leaking the story to the press certainly believes it’s the “consensus view” anyway. And one of their claims would seem to support that charge if you’re inclined to believe it. The unnamed intelligence sources are claiming that the Russians hacked the RNC also, but sat on the documents. That, however, is in stark contrast to previous statements from the FBI that the Russians had tried, but failed to hack the RNC at large, succeeding only in accessing the private accounts of a few individual Republicans. (New York Times)
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
Yet again, this information might lead anyone to draw a particular conclusion, but we’re still lacking the smoking gun. The intelligence official putting this story out there went so far as to say that they “do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” They describe the people passing the documents to Wikileaks as being “one step removed” from the Russian government.
Based on the assumption that Russians did the hacking, the left prefers to concentrate on who may have hacked the information rather that the actual DAMAGE was caused by the CONTENT of the emails… not the hackers.
To the surprise of, I suppose, someone somewhere, the hacked emails exposed Democrats as manipulative racists that regard their supporters as malleable idiots, useful for votes and not much else. It was revealed that a self-designated elite makes the choices for the voters to “choose” and will not leave their destiny to the whims and votes of the public.
Trump denies CIA report that Russia intervened to help him Link
You have elected an idiot.
When a president sends Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to represent the US as Sec of State, what country wouldn’t want a competent president to whom they can discuss real issues of the world? They were the laughing stock of the world.
@Randy, #3:
Yeah. Right.
Where is Trump getting his information about developing global security issues and threats? FOX News? Breitbart? The World Wingnut Daily? Maybe he likes RT’s insightful, fair and balanced news coverage.
There’s a reason presidents get daily intelligence briefings from the nation’s intelligence services. There’s a reason why presidential candidates get security clearances even before the election, and why they begin getting the same daily intelligence briefings the president gets as soon as they’re president elect. It’s called “getting up to speed.” There’s a big effing problem when you elect somebody to be president who decides he doesn’t like what they’re saying, and therefore won’t bother.
Trump recently claimed we invaded Iraq because of faulty WMD intelligence, when the frickin’ Bush administration cherry-picked the information they were given to rationalize an unnecessary war that our intelligence services had clearly warned them would likely destabilize the entire region. Now Trump—who was elected by people living in a propaganda-induced alternate reality—has himself been sucked into that same alternate reality. Either that, or he’s still just telling his supporters whatever the hell he thinks they want to hear. Either way, there’s going to be big trouble as a result. That’s what happens when you take entirely real and serious actions—or refrain from doing so—based on imaginary circumstances.
Kellyanne Conway calls CIA report on Russian election meddling ‘laughable and ridiculous’
Actually, it’s entirely plausible. Want to demonstrate this is not the case? Declassify the intelligence community’s evidence and analysis. Because I see absolutley no reason to believe Kellyanne Conway. She doesn’t have a security clearance. She hasn’t seen what was presented to Congress. And she is by no stretch of the imagination an objective commentator. Her opinion on this matter is utterly worthless.
Possibly with the active assistance of a hostile foreign power. Are we forbidden to ask about such a possibility when our own intelligence services say that appears to be the case?
Perhaps you failed to notice, but our intelligence services were not exactly in the tank for Hillary Clinton. If they say they think our system has been purposefully compromised, they’ve got their reasons for saying so. Anyone who doesn’t want to investigate further needs to sort out their priorities.
@Greg: Believe it or not, successful business men have their own intel . That is how they know what is going on in the world. There are many, likely most, people in the world know more about what is really going on than what you know. That is evident from your posts. One of the failings of liberals is they all think other people do things like liberals. They also never respect the knowledge of others. Are not you the one who predicted the DOW Jones to drop?? Wrong again Greg?? Just what are you knowledgeable about? I am sure everyone here would be interested in what you really know that is true.
@Greg: “Trump recently claimed we invaded Iraq because of faulty WMD intelligence, when the frickin’ Bush administration cherry-picked the information they were given to rationalize an unnecessary war that our intelligence services had clearly warned them would likely destabilize the entire region.” You should not wonder why no one regards you as credible; you still base your faulty arguments on lies.
We have seen the intelligence agencies and upper military leadership become political tools under Obama. Currently, we cannot tell one way or the other if we can trust their assessments.
By the way, Obama ditched intel briefings AS President, which is how he could make such profoundly stupid decisions.
Pretty sure? ha How long did it take for Georgia to determine DHS tried to hack election there? Little GA the DHS cant hide their tracks? The recount in Wisconsin hacked but wont check a state where Hillary won. Pathetic fake news, another lie by Hillary in the debate about 16 agencies. What of her grand reset with Russia?
What harm if if if they did want Trump to win, I didn’t want Hillary to win,does that makes me Ruski operative?
@Randy, #6:
Believe it or not, the CEO of Walmart does have access to an intelligence-gathering and analyzing apparatus that is superior to the collective powers of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.
That Trump would skip their briefings and offhandedly dismiss their conclusions is just plain nuts. That trusted advisers such as Kellyanne Conway would actually condone and encourage this sort of dangerous attitude and irresponsible behavior is equally crazy. Vladimir Putin sure as hell isn’t ignoring intelligence that the massive Russian security apparatus gathers for him. As President of Russia, Putin is actually the head of the SCRF. He’s not a business man. He’s a former KGB operative. He’s a professional player on the geopolitical chess board in every sense of the word. This is what he’s done his entire life. He’s going to run rings around our new amateur president.
Which was, in all probability, the entire point of the Russian incursion into our nation’s election and internal politics in the first place. Team Trump hasn’t yet read the rules that govern the game, let alone a book on geopolitical chess strategy. Team Trump doesn’t even seem to recognize the fact that Team Putin has made a carefully calculated, highly unorthodox pre-game move: they helped decide who they would be playing against. They helped to choose their opponent.
Do you imagine they lack the skills and abilities required to make such a calculated effort? Having those skills and abilities, do you imagine they wouldn’t use them? Team Trump, however, has decided to ignore the warning. And it’s not enough for them just to ignore it; the messengers that brought the warning must be fully discredited. Our own intelligence community must be put in its place.
Key GOP senators join call for bipartisan Russia election probe, even as their leaders remain mum
Because they are patriots, and because they are not stupid.
@Greg: You make an awful lot of assumptions about Trump. You write a lot of words, but you have not been right about Trump yet as proven by his actions. Who did you pick to win the election? Seems like you always miss the point of the discussions and fail to evaluate past performances due to your biases. If you would read Trump’s book and review his actions and their ultimate results, you would be much more accurate in your comments.
@Greg: Are these the same politicians you were berating a few months ago? You are a tri Greg. There is no consistency in your thought processes except for ignorant observations.
@Randy: Yeah, people like Greg love to run with propaganda-driven accusations against Trump while blindly ignoring factual accusations against the liars they support.
@Greg:
Mclame and Grahamnesty, yea a couple of real key senators, RINO’s. Anything but patriots…..
@Greg:
@Greg: Greg, remember what you have said about anonymous sources? Oh, it doesn’t count when conservative issues are concerned? Well, what does that make you? There are many words that occur to me, but……