CIA, FBI, NSA All Agree. The Russians Hacked Our Election.

CIA, FBI, NSA All Agree. The Russians Hacked Our Election. January 19, 2017

Is Vladimir Putin helping Donald Trump win the race for President of the United States? This caricature of Donald Trump was adapted from Creative Commons licensed images from Michael Vadon's flickr photostream. This caricature of Vladimir Putin was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from the Russian Presidential Press and Information Office available via Wikimedia. This background was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from Jeff Ruane's Flickr photostream. The Russian symbol was adapted from a photo in the public domain available via Wikimedia. This bodies were adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from The U.S. Army's Flickr photo stream. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/28512617446/
Is Vladimir Putin helping Donald Trump win the race for President of the United States?
This caricature of Donald Trump was adapted from Creative Commons licensed images from Michael Vadon’s flickr photostream. This caricature of Vladimir Putin was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from the Russian Presidential Press and Information Office available via Wikimedia. This background was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from Jeff Ruane’s Flickr photostream. The Russian symbol was adapted from a photo in the public domain available via Wikimedia. This bodies were adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from The U.S. Army’s Flickr photo stream. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/28512617446/

Why all the flap about whether or not President Trump’s campaign for the presidency was backed by Russian hacking? Who cares if this hostile foreign power influenced our election?

Didn’t President Trump say it wasn’t true?

Didn’t President Putin jump in and defend President Trump and say it wasn’t true? (Which was the first time in my long life that I remember a Russian president defending an American president. Just sayin’.)

Didn’t Jullian Assange say it wasn’t true?

Didn’t the alt right go all wacko crazy and start ad hominem attacks on people who thought it might be true?

Didn’t Fox News go off after another report and so completely muddy the issue that a lot of people forgot the real report?

Why then, you have it. No problemo. No Russian hacking of the election. No President Quisling.

After all, these people are known for always telling the truth. Right?

I mean, President Trump would never tell a lie. He’s as honest as Abe. He’s totally forthright and transparent about everything. Right?

And he has no motivation for lying about this. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Right?

Here, for those of you who are willing to read through it, is a link to the actual joint CIA/FBI/NSA report in which they unanimously agree that the Russians hacked the DNC in the recent election and that they did it in order to elect the man who won, President Trump.

This is not the “dossier” everyone is talking about. That’s a different document which has not been vetted by the CIA/FBI/NSA. It was put together by a former M16 officer in British intelligence named James Steele.

The document I’m referring to was released jointly by the CIA-FBI-NSA. They state that all of these agencies are in unanimous agreement that the Russians hacked our election for the purpose of electing Donald Trump.

I would love to publish the whole document here, but it’s 25 pages long and that would take too much band width.

You can read it yourself, and I encourage you to do so. I also encourage you to make a copy of it and keep it. I think it’s likely that this report is going to be suppressed by the Trump administration, and that the people who helped author it will lose their jobs.

The first victim of the Russian hacking was the American people’s right to chose their own leader. The second victim is likely to be America’s intelligence community, which may very well be gutted. After all, President Trump’s main response to the report — other than his usual denials — was to praise President Putin and then threaten an “investigation” of those who authored the report.

At no time did he express dismay or concern about our national security in the face of this violation of our democratic process.

Here are the main findings from the report. Remember: It is a unanimous joint report by the FBI/CIA/NSA. Remember also that the heads of these agencies have stood by this report despite enormous political pressure to recant.

You owe it to your country to read it in full.

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections

ICA 2017-01D 6 January 2017

Key Judgments

Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.

  •  We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
  •  Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.
  •  Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behavior since early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations and goals.Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.” Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.
  •  Russia’s intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 US presidential election, including targets associated with both major US political parties.
  •  We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data

ii

This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment; its conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment but this version does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.

obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.

  •  Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards. DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.
  •  Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.

 

 

 


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