Declassified Report Claims Putin Ordered Campaign to Influence U.S. Election
Except it’s filled with probablys and maybes.
So the American intelligence community has declassified a report that supposedly shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump.
However, the report includes circumstantial evidence. They provided no concrete evidence that shows Putin sat down with his Kremlin cronies to orchestrated a campaign to make Hillary Clinton lose.
They also concentrated on RT, formerly known as Russia Today, with a brief mention of the phishing schemes that led to Wikileaks publishing emails from the DNC and Hillary campaign chair John Podesta.
(For the record, I’m not a Trump supporter and I hate Putin. But as a journalist, I like facts and not speculation, especially over an incident involving over our election.)
The intelligence community made a point about Putin’s public comments about the election because he “publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stateed policy to work with Russia and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine.” He also criticized Hillary.
That is one man. How about the 61 foreign leaders who publicly criticized Trump? Couldn’t you say that they tried to influence the campaign? Opposition came from leaders in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and China:
“Divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.” Former British prime minister David Cameron on Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban.
“Trump is an irrational type.” Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei.
“Yes [the election of Donald Trump would be dangerous]. [It] would complicate relations between Europe and the United States.” French President Francois Hollande.
“I can only hope that the election campaign in the USA does not lack the perception of reality.” Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Trump’s use of the “America first” slogan.
Last March, Hillary told an audience at a town hall that she received messages from leaders (emphasis mine):
“I am already receiving messages from leaders,” Clinton told an Ohio audience at a Democratic presidential town hall on Sunday night.
“I’m having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump.”
—
“But one argument that I am uniquely qualified to bring, because of my service as secretary of State, is what [Trump’s] presidency would mean to our country and our standing in the world.”
This gets me, though. The intelligence community put a huge emphasis on RT, but how many people does the channel actually reach? The Daily Beast reported this in 2015:
RT, the documents note, is not present in Nielsen ratings for the U.S. for 2012, which it says start with channels with an audience of 18 million households. Nor does it make cable news channels rankings, meaning that, according to the documents, “the average daily viewership of RT programs in the US does not reach [30,000] people.”
“RT claims that ‘more than 100 million viewers in US cities receive the channel 24 hours a day via satellite and cable networks,’” the documents say. In reality that’s just the total population of homes where “through cable networks, one can theoretically receive RT in a package with hundreds of others of channels.”
As of 2015, RT is still largely absent from cable news rankings.
The website for RT does not have the statistics that make me believe it has the power to reach people in America. According to Alexa, RT.com has a global rank of 280 and a mind blowing 546 in America.
I find it hard to believe that this little network had the power to influence an entire nation to turn against Hillary and vote for Trump.
Trump met with intelligence officials on Friday in a “constructive” meeting, but reiterated his stance that this Russian influence “had ‘absolutely no effect’ on the election.” But he said he would do what he could to stop cyberattacks:
“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” Mr. Trump said. “Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority.”
Speaker Paul Ryan said the report led him to believe the Kremlin “clearly tried to meddle in our political system,” but pointed out that “Trump won this election fair and square because he heard the voices of Americans who felt forgotten.”
Once again. Hillary Clinton lost this election because she was a horrible candidate and ran a horrible campaign.
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
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Comments
If you want evidence of a major world player interfering in a national election, see “Obama, Netanyahu”. Our White House unilaterally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat Netanyahu.
That Russia – or China, or North Korea, or Iran, or…. – might try to influence American politics is hardly unusual. It’s been going on since, oh, 1776?
Leftists have a history of disliking Jews. Secular Jews are useful, but religious/moral Jews are a threat to the Pro-Choice establishment.
“If you want evidence of a major world player interfering in a national election, see “Obama, Netanyahu”. Our White House unilaterally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat Netanyahu.”
Exactly. And I seem to recall that our ALLIES, the Germans, got a wee tad torqued off not too long ago when we got caught spying on THEM.
Just how stupid do the elites think we are? We’re supposed to be surprised that countries with spy agencies full of spies are, you know, spying on us? Color me NOT surprised.
What I want to know is where the holy heck are our counter-intelligence personnel? Aren’t we paying them to prevent this sort of thing?
I don’t see why it should be the job of US counter-intelligence personnel to prevent Russian spying on private entities such as the DNC and John Podesta.
It’s come to this: I trust Assange to be telling the truth more than I do the ‘intelligence community’ or McCain.
Not very long ago, the leftists would have said the same thing. I’m having a hard time remembering when they’ve believed them since the Iraq WMD debacle.
After eight years of having the damned president look me right in the eye and repeatedly lie like a m-f-er, there can be no government official I’d ever trust.
Did the CIA finally admit that it was Vlad Putin who forced the DNC to cheat Bernie Saunders? Or, did VP blackmail the DEMS into choosing a candidate under two Federal Investigations.
The official MSM/DNC truth which we are under orders to believe is (1) Russia hacked into the Democrats’ servers and stole the emails and (2) the emails are forgeries.
And Oceania has always been at war with Eurasi-, er, Easrasia.
After a while, even the MSM could not attack the validity of the emails. So they just ignored the contents and blamed the Russians.
All the Russians did (if it really was them) was expose massive criminality and immorality within the Democratic Party.
Only sick people think that exposing such people is doing something wrong. And every day since the election they have shown us just how sick they are.
So the Obama-led intelligence community has unearthed a criminal conspiracy by Russia to secretly use Russia Today (snerk) in order to convince the (hm, 30k divided by 300m) one one-hundredth of a percent of the US population who pay attention to it to vote for Trump.
Yeah, that’s an amazing counterbalance against those tiny little news organizations like CBS/NBC/ABC/NPR/CNN who were 24/7 Hillary supporters.
/snark
So, while the Dems were in the driver’s seat, these seventeen concurring intelligence agencies—at least one of which had an “asset” so close to Putin himself that we know what he personally ordered and directed—knew all about these nefarious shenanigans … but did nothing to block or circumvent them.
Well, that makes them quite the bozos, doesn’t it?
It must be discouraging to be a Democrat these days. The more they lie and spin, the more stupid, inbred, incompetent, hapless, and just plain ridiculous they look.
What was the original classification of this declassified report? Super Duper Top Secret?
And how long did it take to declassify it? Ten minutes?
Oh, never mind.
So let’s say the Russians did interfere with the election. Now how was that done? Getting WikiLeaks to release emails/info that was damaging to HRC. No one has disputed that any of the info is wrong. So they were telling the truth about HRC and DNC. Hmmm, isn’t that the job of the media?
“DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying”
-page iii, Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident and Attribution
If you read through the report, you’ll get a sense of how hokey the “influence” was, but that quote was the moneymaker. So, how many MSM will report this finding? I kid, I already know the answer.
And wasn’t the primary way that Russia “hacked” the DC emails based on Podesta clicking on the link in a phishing email? Yup, these are truly geniuses at the DNC.
Publishing the same collection of inferences, suppositions, ‘considered beliefs’ and other BS you’ve already made public and now calling it ‘declassified’ doesn’t make the ‘conclusions’ any more believable. It’s rather insulting, actually. I’m old enough to remember that Kennedy published the photographs.
Probablys, maybes, and inference – created knowledge.
I still think the evidence supports that Deep Plunger was a disenfranchised Sanders supporter and Podesta got hooked in a Nigerian Phishing expedition.
Who has done more damage to the U.S.. The Russians by leaking true emails and what ever else the might have done to influence the election, or James Comey not prosecution Hillary (never mind the damage Hillary might have done with her private server)? I contend, not holding a public official accountable for clearly mishandling classified information, has weakened the structure of American Law, by giving exemptions to the rich and powerful.
It’s RUMINT posing as fact.
The systems in question that were hacked were not government systems. I’m quite sure the Russians, along with the chinese, portugese, germans, brits, Canadians, and every damn 15 year old with a computer “hacked” those systems. After all, shrillary, the DNC, and podesta practically had signs out directing them where and how.
Which has nothing to do with our election integrity. It has everything to do with the bumbling fools that call their selves “democrats”.
Why on earth anyone believes anything these people have to say is beyond me. They lie, they always lie.
This is all a huge disinformation campaign designed to undermine the Trump Presidency and to divert attention from the activities of the DNC and the Clinton campaign to sink the Sanders campaign, as well as shifting the blame from the Clinton campaign to an outside actor, for its loss to Trump.
In order for this to work, the Democrats, the MSM and the Establishment have to do two things. They have to make it sound as though Russia is the avowed enemy of the United states. While this is credible, it is not necessarily true. The US and Russia are competitors for the “most powerful nation in the world” category. This is historical and is still the driving force behind the actions of the Russian elite. And the second thing they have to do is convince people that the intrusions into the DNC servers was both external and extraordinary. Again, this type of activity is historically common place, on the international stage. Once this narrative is accepted, then it becomes easier to sell the narrative that Clinton lost because of outside interference and that Trump is not the legitimate winner of the election. The parallel narrative is that Trump is somehow allied with Vladimir Putin and the Russian state. We can see evidence that selling this narrative is in full swing in the attempts by the media to suggest that several Trump cabinet appointees, particularly Rex Tillerson, the presumptive Secretary of State, are inordinately friendly with Putin and Russia. Russia, not global Islamic Jihad, is being set up as the real villain in the world. The reason for this is probably to attempt to save face for the outgoing President, who allowed Islamic Jihad to flourish on his watch.
Until the intelligence community, or someone else, produces proof that categorically indicates that the Russian state was complicit in the intrusion into the DNC servers, Podesta’s email account and in releasing the information gleaned there, this is nothing more than a fairytale. And, it is not advisable to take any precipitous action based upon a fairytale.
This ^^^
The lack of evidence and doubling down for what the 8th time? (Clears throat, like I said the Russians did it, cause I’m your intelligence) What the heck is going on?
Is this a disinformation campaign? Is this the admin’s last ditch effort to try and prevent Trump from making peace in Syria? Is this an anti trump political ruse? Our intel can’t honestly be this inept… can it?
Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Ukraine, and, of course, all the other targets of anti-nativism in Germany, France, Norway, Britain, Hungary, and America, too.
The Russians actually did us a favor by standing with the refugees of Western-backed wars in Ukraine and Syria. They may be interested in reversing nearly a decade of social justice adventurism that has caused mass exodus from diverse nations.
Drain the intelligence swamp too.
“splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds”
You left out a major part that a couple other places have picked up on (Powerline was where I saw it first).
Namely, that a large portion of the report has as a citation a report from 2012.
Which is just what people have been saying. The ONLY reason Obama and the Democrats are whining about this is because it hurt them.
Wikileaks dumps tens of thousands of classified military documents from Manning on the web? No big deal.
China hacks military computers and acquires information on millions of Americans in the Armed Forces? Yawn.
John Podesta apparently has P@ssw0rd as his password and clicks on a laughably obvious fake email? RESTART THE COLD WAR.
So when are the investigations and sanctions against the meddling of these countries going to be instituted? You know at one point or another the msm attributed anonymous source quotes from these stains on liberty.
Especially Italy as their Prime Minister publicly endorsed hilldawg. See the last quote by the hilldawg herself.
“Divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.” Former British prime minister David Cameron on Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban.
“Trump is an irrational type.” Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei.
“Yes [the election of Donald Trump would be dangerous]. [It] would complicate relations between Europe and the United States.” French President Francois Hollande.
“I can only hope that the election campaign in the USA does not lack the perception of reality.” Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Trump’s use of the “America first” slogan.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/272855-clinton-says-foreign-leaders-want-to-endorse-her-to-stop
“Some have done it publicly, actually,” Clinton replied, singling out Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Tapper pressed her about who the private messages had come from.
“No. … We’re holding that in reserve,” Clinton responded with a laugh.
Were the foreign “contributions” to the Clinton Criminal Foundation meant to have any influence on the election? Didn’t the money dry up after the election? Wasn’t it Hillary who gave Russia control of US uranium?
The swamp appears to be as deep as Lake Superior.
Wasn’t it Hillary who gave Russia control of US uranium?
No, it wasn’t.
/me throws the BS flag
this whole meme is just #FakeNews
Upon reading the report, I found it tedious, long on speculation, and absent of any real information. Is this really the best they could muster in an effort to delegitimize Trump and try to start a war with Russia?
>
But then I think back to the hacking done by China where OPM lost reams of data and Obama did nothing.
>
What we seem to be watching is a near suicidal effort to destroy the Trump presidency before it even starts and those doing this do not care in the least how much damage they do internationally or internally. What we are watching is the inner workings of the “fourth estate”, the illuminati, or whatever you want to call it, as they go about doing all they can in a concerted effort to overthrow Trump. The power they hold, the willingness to lie to Americans, and the desperateness with which they cling to control just so they can manipulate so much should terrify us all.
What most angers me about the reporting on this issue by the liberal MSM, is their not-even-thinly-veiled supposition that if not for Putin, Hillary would have won the election. What bull!
What I wish for is Trump and team, and the GOP in general, to adopt more of a “talk to the hand” attitude with the liberal MSM and Dems in general.
Go nuclear and steam roll them on everything. And I hope CalExit is a success!
If you were Putin, wouldn’t you rather not have the greatest nuclear power on Earth led by a careless, incompetent, woman who is prone to fits of rage? Seriously, it might be good for some short term gains, but the Putin may not want to risk his beloved Russia ruined due to one of Hillary’s notorious fits of anger.
Trump would be a more difficult competitor, but would be far less likely to behave irrationally or incompetently.
The final analysis: the democrats lost the election because of Hillary Clinton.
OK, let me get this straight — it is believed that the Russians had a hand in revealing that:
1) the media is feeding us DNC propaganda;
2) the grassroots protesters were paid operatives of the DNC; and
3) the DNC is run by corrupt hypocrites.
So, in summary, the Obama administration is claiming that:
the Russian government provided more truthful information to the US public than our own government provided.
As Arte Johnson would say, Verrrry interrresting.
Expel the Russians. Expel the Russians. Next thing you know they’ll release Obama’s birth certificate and college records.
Yes, exactly. The Democrats are acting like a criminal convicted by a jury that was given information it shouldn’t have been. The Supreme Court invented the exclusionary rule for very good reasons, and I don’t seek to abolish it, but the fact remains that every time it’s used it results in an injustice. Criminals are not entitled to be acquitted merely because they managed to hide the evidence of their guilt; that they must be is merely the price we pay to protect ourselves from arbitrary convictions. Therefore they are also not entitled to be acquitted merely because their attempt to hide the evidence of their guilt was illegally foiled; again, that they must be is the price we pay to protect our own privacy.
We endure the injustice of a criminal walking free, because the alternative would be worse for us. That the criminal benefits from this is a bad thing, not a good one. The criminal’s acquittal is an entirely unearned windfall, not something that he’s entitled to, and therefore if he is in fact convicted he has no grounds for complaint. He has not been cheated of anything. The conviction is just; the only reason we should overturn it is because the consequences for our society are undesirable.
Should there be an “exclusionary rule” in elections? Perhaps one can make a case that there should be, but right now there is none, and that’s the Democrats’ basic problem. The “jury” found out the truth, and came to a correct verdict; even if it shouldn’t have known what it did, Clinton was not cheated of anything.
“Should there be an “exclusionary rule” in elections? Perhaps one can make a case that there should be, but right now there is none, and that’s the Democrats’ basic problem.”
Didn’t a lot of information come out about Trump from dubious sources that perhaps should have been exclusionary? And one would think that might have swayed the “jury” also.