Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

Glenn Greenwald
December 10 2016, 7:11 a.m.

THE WASHINGTON POST late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.

These unnamed sources told the Post that “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.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed.

A second leak from last night, this one given to the New York Times, cites other anonymous officials as asserting 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.” But that NYT story says that “it is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.”

Deep down in its article, the Post notes — rather critically — that “there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.” Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” But the purpose of both anonymous leaks is to finger the Russian government for these hacks, acting with the motive to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Needless to say, Democrats — still eager to make sense of their election loss and to find causes for it other than themselves — immediately declared these anonymous claims about what the CIA believes to be true, and, with a somewhat sweet, religious-type faith, treated these anonymous assertions as proof of what they wanted to believe all along: that Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose and used nefarious means to ensure that outcome. That Democrats are now venerating unverified, anonymous CIA leaks as sacred is par for the course for them this year, but it’s also a good indication of how confused and lost U.S. political culture has become in the wake of Trump’s victory.

Given the obvious significance of this story — it is certain to shape how people understand the 2016 election and probably foreign policy debates for months if not years to come — it is critical to keep in mind some basic facts about what is known and, more importantly, what is not known:

(1) Nobody has ever opposed investigations to determine if Russia hacked these emails, nor has anyone ever denied the possibility that Russia did that. The source of contention has been quite simple: No accusations should be accepted until there is actual convincing evidence to substantiate those accusations.

There is still no such evidence for any of these claims. What we have instead are assertions, disseminated by anonymous people, completely unaccompanied by any evidence, let alone proof. As a result, none of the purported evidence — still — can be publicly seen, reviewed, or discussed. Anonymous claims leaked to newspapers about what the CIA believes do not constitute proof, and certainly do not constitute reliable evidence that substitutes for actual evidence that can be reviewed. Have we really not learned this lesson yet?

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Christopher Hayes ✔ @chrislhayes
A reminder to take every claim made by unnamed US officials about intelligence conclusions with healthy skepticism.
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(2) The reasons no rational person should blindly believe anonymous claims of this sort — even if it is pleasing to believe such claims — should be obvious by now.

To begin with, CIA officials are professional, systematic liars; they lie constantly, by design, and with great skill, and have for many decades, as have intelligence officials in other agencies.






Many of those incidents demonstrate, as hurtful as it is to accept, that these agencies even lie when there’s a Democrat overseeing the executive branch. Even in those cases when they are not deliberately lying, they are often gravely mistaken. Intelligence is not a science, and attributing hacks to specific sources is a particularly difficult task, almost impossible to carry out with precision and certainty.



Beyond that, what makes claims from anonymous sources so especially dubious is that their motives cannot be assessed. Who are the people summarizing these claims to the Washington Post? What motives do they have for skewing the assertions one way or the other? Who are the people inside the intelligence community who fully ratify these assertions and who are the ones who dissent? It’s impossible to answer any of these questions because everyone is masked by the shield of anonymity, which is why reports of this sort demand high levels of skepticism, not blind belief.

Most important of all, the more serious the claim is — and accusing a nuclear-armed power of directly and deliberately interfering in the U.S. election in order to help the winning candidate is about as serious as a claim can get — the more important it is to demand evidence before believing it. Wars have started over far less serious claims than this one. People like Lindsey Graham are already beating their chest, demanding that the U.S. do everything in its power to punish Russia and “Putin personally.”

Nobody should need an explainer about why it’s dangerous in the extreme to accept such inflammatory accusations on faith or, worse, based on the anonymous assurances of intelligence officials, in lieu of seeing the actual evidence.




(3) An important part of this story, quite clearly, is inter-agency feuding between, at the very least, the CIA and the FBI.

Recall that the top echelon of the CIA was firmly behind Clinton and vehemently against Trump, while at least some powerful factions within the FBI had the opposite position.

Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell not only endorsed Clinton in the New York Times but claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” George W. Bush’s CIA and NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, pronounced Trump a “clear and present danger” to U.S. national security and then, less than a week before the election, went to the Washington Post to warn that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin” and said Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

Meanwhile, key factions in the FBI were furious that Hillary Clinton was not criminally charged for her handling of classified information; pressured FBI Director James Comey into writing a letter that was pretty clearly harmful to Clinton about further investigating the case; and seemed to be improperly communicating with close Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. And while we are now being treated to anonymous leaks about how the CIA believes Putin helped Trump, recall that the FBI, just weeks ago, was shoveling anonymous claims to the New York Times that had the opposite goal:



One can choose to believe whatever anonymous claims from these agencies with a long history of lying and error one wants to believe, based on whatever agenda one has. Or one can wait to review the actual evidence before forming beliefs about what really happened. It should take little effort to realize that the latter option is the only rational path.



(4) Even just within the leaks of the last 24 hours, there are multiple grounds of confusion, contradictions, and uncertainty.

The always-observant Marcy Wheeler last night documented many of those; anyone interested in this story should read her analysis as soon as possible. I want to highlight just a few of these vital contradictions and questions.

To start with, the timing of these leaks is so striking. Even as Democrats have spent months issuing one hysterical claim after the next about Russian interference, the White House, and Obama specifically, have been very muted about all of this. Perhaps that’s because he did not want to appear partisan or be inflammatory, but perhaps it’s because he does not believe there is sufficient proof to accuse the Russian government; after all, if he really believed the Russians did even half of what Democrats claim, wouldn’t he (as some Democrats have argued) be duty-bound to take aggressive action in retaliation?

It was announced yesterday afternoon that Obama had ordered a full review of hacking allegations: a perfectly sensible step that makes clear that an investigation is needed, and evidence disclosed, before any definitive conclusions can be reached. It was right on the heels of that announcement that this CIA leak emerged: short-cutting the actual, deliberative investigative process Obama had ordered in order to lead the public to believe that all the answers were already known and, before the investigation even starts, that Russia was guilty of all charges.

More important is what the Post buries in its story: namely, what are the so-called “minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment”? How “minor” are they? And what do these conclusions really mean if, as the Post’s sources admit, the CIA is not even able to link the hack to the actual Russian government, but only to people outside the government (from the Post: “Those actors, according to the official, were ‘one step’ removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees”)?

This is why it’s such a shoddy and unreliable practice to conduct critical debates through conflicting anonymous leaks. Newspapers like the Post have the obvious incentive to hype the flashy, flamboyant claims while downplaying and burying the caveats and conflicting evidence. None of these questions can be asked, let alone answered, because the people who are making these claims are hidden and the evidence is concealed.



(5) Contrary to the declarations of self-vindication by supremely smug Democrats, none of this even relates to, let alone negates, the concerns over their election-year McCarthyite behavior and tactics.

Contrary to the blatant straw man many Democrats are railing against, nobody ever said it was McCarthyite to want to investigate claims of Russian hacking. To the contrary, critics of Clinton supporters have been arguing for exactly that: that these accusations should not be believed in the absence of meaningful inquiry and evidence, which has thus far been lacking.

What critics have said is McCarthyite — and, as one of those critics, I fully stand by this — is the lowly tactic of accusing anyone questioning these accusations, or criticizing the Clinton campaign, of being Kremlin stooges or Putin agents. Back in August, after Democrats decided to smear Jill Stein as a Putin stooge, here’s how I defined the McCarthyite atmosphere that Democrats have deliberately cultivated this year:

So that’s the Democratic Party’s approach to the 2016 election. Those who question, criticize or are perceived to impede Hillary Clinton’s smooth, entitled path to the White House are vilified as stooges, sympathizers and/or agents of Russia: Trump, WikiLeaks, Sanders, The Intercept, Jill Stein. Other than loyal Clinton supporters, is there anyone left who is not covertly controlled by or in service to The Ruskies?

Concerns over Democrats’ McCarthyism never had anything to do with a desire for an investigation into the source of the DNC and Podesta hacking; everyone favored such investigations. Indeed, accusations that Democrats were behaving in a McCarthyite manner were predicated — and still are — on their disgusting smearing as Kremlin agents anyone who wanted evidence and proof before believing these inflammatory accusations about Russia.

To see the true face of this neo-McCarthyism, watch this amazing interview from this week with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the party’s leading Russia hawks (he’s quoted in the Post article attacking Obama for not retaliating against Putin). When Schiff is repeatedly asked by the interviewer, Tucker Carlson, for evidence to support his allegation that Putin ordered the hacking of Podesta’s emails, Schiff provides none.

What he does instead is accuse Carlson of being a Kremlin stooge and finally tells him he should put his program on RT. That — which has become very typical Democratic rhetoric — is the vile face of neo-McCarthyism that Democrats have adopted this year, and nothing in this CIA leak remotely vindicates or justifies it:


Needless to say, questions about who hacked the DNC and Podesta email accounts are serious and important ones. The answers have widespread implications on many levels. That’s all the more reason these debates should be based on publicly disclosed evidence, not competing, unverifiable anonymous leaks from professional liars inside government agencies, cheered by drooling, lost partisans anxious to embrace whatever claims make them feel good, all conducted without the slightest regard for rational faculties or evidentiary requirements.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence/?comments=1#comments

And here for example:

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/more-evidence-emerges-how-russian-hacking-harmed-clinton-and-helped-trump-presidential

US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims


As the hysteria about Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election grows, a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on “circumstantial evidence” when it has the capability for hard evidence, say U.S. intelligence veterans.



Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

MEMORANDUM

Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless

A New York Times report on Monday alluding to “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump” is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking – by Russians or anyone else.

Monday’s Washington Post reports that Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined other senators in calling for a bipartisan investigation of suspected cyber-intrusion by Russia. Reading our short memo could save the Senate from endemic partisanship, expense and unnecessary delay.

In what follows, we draw on decades of senior-level experience – with emphasis on cyber-intelligence and security – to cut through uninformed, largely partisan fog. Far from hiding behind anonymity, we are proud to speak out with the hope of gaining an audience appropriate to what we merit – given our long labors in government and other areas of technology. And corny though it may sound these days, our ethos as intelligence professionals remains, simply, to tell it like it is – without fear or favor.

We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking:

Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did.

Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or any other cyber-protection system and then extracts data.

All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it – and know both sender and recipient.

In short, since leaking requires physically removing data – on a thumb drive, for example – the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.

Awesome Technical Capabilities

Again, NSA is able to identify both the sender and recipient when hacking is involved. Thanks largely to the material released by Edward Snowden, we can provide a full picture of NSA’s extensive domestic data-collection network including Upstream programs like Fairview, Stormbrew and Blarney. These include at least 30 companies in the U.S. operating the fiber networks that carry the Public Switched Telephone Network as well as the World Wide Web. This gives NSA unparalleled access to data flowing within the U.S. and data going out to the rest of the world, as well as data transiting the U.S.

In other words, any data that is passed from the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) – or any other server in the U.S. – is collected by the NSA. These data transfers carry destination addresses in what are called packets, which enable the transfer to be traced and followed through the network.

Packets: Emails being passed across the World Wide Web are broken down into smaller segments called packets. These packets are passed into the network to be delivered to a recipient. This means the packets need to be reassembled at the receiving end.

To accomplish this, all the packets that form a message are assigned an identifying number that enables the receiving end to collect them for reassembly. Moreover, each packet carries the originator and ultimate receiver Internet protocol number (either IPV4 or IPV6) that enables the network to route data.

When email packets leave the U.S., the other “Five Eyes” countries (the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and the seven or eight additional countries participating with the U.S. in bulk-collection of everything on the planet would also have a record of where those email packets went after leaving the U.S.

These collection resources are extensive; they include hundreds of trace route programs that trace the path of packets going across the network and tens of thousands of hardware and software implants in switches and servers that manage the network. Any emails being extracted from one server going to another would be, at least in part, recognizable and traceable by all these resources.

The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network.

The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked.

The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods. Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider – as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone in a government department or agency with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC.

As for the comments to the media as to what the CIA believes, the reality is that CIA is almost totally dependent on NSA for ground truth in the communications arena. Thus, it remains something of a mystery why the media is being fed strange stories about hacking that have no basis in fact. In sum, given what we know of NSA’s existing capabilities, it beggars belief that NSA would be unable to identify anyone – Russian or not – attempting to interfere in a U.S. election by hacking.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/12/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/

Just got an AP "Breaking News Alert": Trump has chosen Exxon CEO Tillerson for Sec. of State. Trump may be getting his back up. This could all go south in a heartbeat. The conformation hearings ought to be a hoot...

Just got an AP "Breaking News Alert": Trump has chosen Exxon CEO Tillerson for Sec. of State. Trump may be getting his back up. This could all go south in a heartbeat. The conformation hearings ought to be a hoot...

Who knew that the crisis of American capitalism would come in comic book form?

The CIA’s Absence of Conviction 242
11 Dec, 2016 in Uncategorized by craig

I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.

As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.

The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.

I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:

The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”
But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.

It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.

In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?

Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.

Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.

In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.

The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

it was a leak, not a hack

This little sliver of fact will never get out to wide distribution.

The more relevant story (before getting to who actually leaked any details) begins with the question, "What exactly are the claims made about Hillary Clinton and are these claims valid?" That's something we have heard precious little about not only from the main arteries of propaganda (such as NBC, C-Span, WaPo, BBC, Guardian and assorted large-scale media/government functionaries) but also from the vast network of "alternative" liberal outlets.

There were countless stories within the Wikileaks releases that any journalist could have used as leads to develop in-depth pieces on the corruption and patronage that defines Hillary Clinton. How come these stories are not coming at us on a daily basis? The answer is obvious but it still needs to be asked.

==========================

IMO the real question is why is the CIA even allowed to exist outside of any authority considering their massive global criminality?

===============

If anyone needed further proof that these utterly worthless and corrupted fake news outlets have been fully captured, neutered and assimilated by the establishment, becoming nothing more than extensions of DNC / CIA / USG fake news propaganda stooges, surely this is it?
The Washington Post, and the Guardian, with it's phony reputation for being a "left-wing" news source, have been fully exposed now.

Any future reference to these organizations (owned by billionaires, and apparently censored by billionaires) as real news sources ought to be laughed out of court, as the very bad joke they have become!

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Most people know that disgruntled DNC insiders were responsible for the leaks. That the DNC with it's propaganda arm The US MSM now finds it an irresistible cover story for their embarrassment to blame the Russians, who had little to gain whether Trump or Clinton was POTUS . Putin deals with the real US government that hasn't changed in decades, not the latest front man/woman.. The CIA and FBI love this lie as well for their own reasons.

========================

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what they have to say, all I, a person capable of cognition (or so I wishfully believe) am concerned with is that WikiLeaks --- with their 100% honesty record --- says the CIA is making up the nonsense about the leaked emails being from Russia, while the CIA --- with their 100% dishonesty record --- claim the source was Russia.

I'll begin to have any faith in the CIA when they have submitted to their first ever forensic audit to explain where all those missing billions have disappeared to!

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This just boggles my mind. A conspiracy by the Permanent Government spearheaded by the CIA to annul the results of an election that was no less legitimate than usual, and the fake ‘liberal left’ is cheerleading for the coup. The CIA is sticking its neck way out. If Trump gets in charge their heads will roll. It seems they must be confident that he won’t be allowed to take office unless he agrees to follow orders. This will complete the US transition fo a full fledged banana republic, and the D party is leading the way. Who said Trump was worse than Clinton? Who are the fascists now?

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If the Democrats were really concerned about fair elections they would have sent a shitload of lawyers to Michigan. Trump did and the Democrats seem to have sent nobody. They criticize voter suppression but they don't fight very hard to stop it. Instead they hope the CIA will save them? Considering Obama may be the best operative they ever had it makes sense but there is clearly internal disagreement in the Intelligence circles.
Actually I wonder if this is just a set up for an electoral college surprise. There may be big rewards for Electors saving the deep-state-machine from changing their plans, not to speak of saving their asses from international embarrassment.
Course it could just be a shit storm of hail Mary passes.

======================

If not Russia, who then who will be the MIC bogey man? We really need a dark, scary cartoon character to focus our military spending on, lest the taxes of Americans get used for superfluous programs like education, affordable housing, and healthcare; or, God help us, addressing the fallacy of climate change (Trump has told us that 97% consensus among climate scientists should be dismissed as Chinese propaganda).

And besides, this is hypocrisy. The US has been engaged in election meddling all over the world, and in fact has destroyed democratically elected governments and installed US business-friendly dictatorships in several countries. Maybe we should apply the Golden Rule to ourselves. In international polls, it is America that is identified as the greatest risk to peace.

http://www.ibtimes.com/gallup-...

I don't think Americans understand how their country is viewed in the rest of the world. It's much like Trump is viewed here--as unpredictable, increasingly incompetent, and dangerous. It's getting to the point where the other powers are not going to allow the US to continue rampaging through the grocery store. And given the state of unpayable US debt, a gutted industrial infrastructure, and a greedy oligarchy that under Trump sees a feeding frenzy ahead, the future does not look good for America. I would not bet on the US emerging from this in one piece.

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Just watching Newsnight on BBC - they're devoting the whole program to Syria. You can almost smell the desperation. Assad has retaken Aleppo and boy do they not like it. They're using every kind of despicable propaganda you can imagine - suffering kids, evil Putin etc. It s quite a spectacle! What a bunch of filthy lying presstitutes

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It's in the US military-industrial-corporate complex interest to keep the fires of strife lit with Russia - it justifies their perpetual budget and US worker taxpayer cash cow in existence.

=================

It is mind boggling to see how the Liberals have doubled down on censorship of free speech plus aggressively re-asserting Cold War II.

How does that re-engage them with working people who stayed home or voted Trump in 2016?

====================

You know what - you raised a very interesting question. How does all that hysteria about Russia, still praising Hillary get more working people to vote for them? It does not.

Then might it not be done on purpose? After all the GOP and the DNC have really worked together for decades now to enrich themselves and rule the world by fooling people with their partisan bickering.

The Dow Jones will reach 20,000 in a couple of days and some TV propaganda channels credit Obama for it while other propaganda channels credit Trump for it. Does it matter? The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

Regular brainwashed people are beating up Trump voters and Trump voters bashing Hillary voters, Muslims etc. Let the fools kill each other off then import a lot of refugees to work for practically nothing and keep the power and the riches flowing.

====================

So let me get this straight, the DNC is mad at Russia because they "think" they are trying to manipulate our election by exposing that the DNC is manipulating our election?

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef824aea511a736e43800b03e608576442c05821ed2299dc9992b98d91607e1a.jpg

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I don't get the people who keep jabbering about how the Podesta emails weren't newsworthy.

One of the things I found out was that Hillary Clinton's campaign, and the DNC wanted a "pied piper" Republican candidate in order to engineer their own victory. Virtually confirming that they actively pumped Trump before the end of the primaries, thinking that such an awful candidate would catapult them to victory, despite how much Clinton is hated.

That is highly newsworthy to me. We not only thankfully don't have Clinton, we specifically have Trump, thanks to both Clinton and Clinton allied fake news like MSDNC, DNN and the like.

It confirms that the Democrats consciously and explicitly use a blackmail strategy to get their foul candidates elected. Only this time the blackmail didn't work and the kitten got shot.

================

"At least Clinton had a history of social reform"

She certainly did. Helped uproot millions from their homes fleeing to escape her boss's dirty little regime change wars. Made millions off of it, too. She's an angel, that one, a real angel.

===================

More red scare BS without a hint of evidence (outside of non public "intelligence" reports, when are they ever wrong? lol) while establishment DNC corporatists of the pseudo "liberal" persuasion rush to blame anyone but their candidates economic hypocrisy, corruption, cronyism etc.. which was all revealed.

Isn't the corporate media supposedly supposed to inform the public in this plutocracy? These e-mail chain releases pulled back the curtain on Hillary/OZ and illustrated her disingenuous, corporate owned, elitist, corrupt status quo operation.

IMO that is a benefit to the US populace. That is supposedly takes a foreign nation to expose this, speaks to the utter corruption of corporate media and our political rulers.

If Russia did hack these mails (doubtful), then the questions become WHY would anyone want a corporate DNC in charge of our nation when they can't even secure their communications? Why are these networks not secure? Why won't the Obama corporation declassify the evidence? Where is the congressional investigation?

This also ignores some simple facts like these hacks didn't hand Trump the election, not to mention the US meddling in elections globally is a constant.

Again, where is the evidence?

=====================

IF Russia hacked the DNC, we owe them a debt of gratitude. How else would we know for certain to what depths of corruption that party has sunk? You didn't think our CIA would tell us, did you? Hardly!

But, of course, Russia did no such thing. I suspect it was another
Snowden-type whistleblower(s) within the system who thought he was
doing the right thing for his country. He was, but after seeing what
happened with Snowden, he's be wise to lay low...very low.

Think about it...if Russia were truly out to hurt us, what better damage
could it do than to stay out of the election and watch Hillary Clinton
become president.

=================

Garbage, as ever. There is NO proof of Russian involvement, and lots of evidence that it was leaking, not hacking, at work. The election was lost because Clinton was a hopeless candidate, the Repugs gerrymandered well, purged the electoral rolls savagely, and the turn-out was low after eight years of Obama's betrayals. The insane mania of Russophobia might impress dead souls like your fragrant self, but it's the sign of a dying tyranny going barking mad in its death-throes.

but it's the sign of a dying tyranny going barking mad in its death-throes.

Good line.

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2016 elections (http://www.thebellforum.com/taxonomy/term/6940)

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by BAR executive editor Glen FordThe orchestrators of the anti-Russian war hysteria “have shown over the past several weeks that they are willing, and even eager, to bring down the whole edifice of U.S. social and political ‘checks and balances’ -- freedom of speech and other civil liberties -- to sustain the momentum of their neoliberal offensive in the world.” White Republicans stole the election, as usual, not Russians. Corporate Democrats want to steal the Bill of Rights.
Corporate Democrats Stir Up War Fever Against Russia to Turn Electionby BAR executive editor Glen Ford“People are looking for Russians, but what we had is a real Jim Crow election.”
Like a gyroscope gone out of whack, the destabilized U.S. duopoly system is spinning out of control on a course to self-destruction. In a breathtaking rush to they-know-not-where, the Democrats have deliberately whipped up an anti-Russian war hysteria not experienced in three generations. The Russians, however, have virtually nothing to do with the crisis, which is very soon likely to degenerate into something resembling civil war at home.
The ruling class is undoing itself. Refusing to accept Electoral College defeat, the bipartisan War Party that coagulated in Hillary Clinton’s big campaign tent in terror of Donald Trump’s “softness” on Russia and his heresies regarding the unfettered flow of capital, now stacks dynamite under the very system that has kept the rich in power throughout the history of the Republic. They hope to create a*crisis that might -- at maximum -- reverse the election outcome. At minimum, they seek to force the new administration to abandon any notions of peaceful coexistence with those states that present obstacles to U.S. global domination.
However, in their frenzy to abort the Trump presidency, the Clintonites and their bipartisan national security establishment allies are showing the world just how fragile the U.S. political system really is when faced with serious contradictions between ruling elites. The duopoly arrangement, through which the bourgeoisie control both major parties, is the glue that stabilizes the system. There is no magic to the American structure of government that automatically sustains the hegemony of the rich. If the ruling elites fail to uphold the gentlemen’s agreement that is the heart of the duopoly, then the system can fall apart. Radicals are not expected*to be protectors of the duopoly system, but when the bourgeoisie behave so recklessly it is a sign of crisis*in the ruling class.
“They hope to create a*crisis that might -- at maximum -- reverse the election outcome.”
Donald Trump violated the agreement when he signaled a desire for a thaw with Russia, an end to the regime change offensive, and opposition to so-called “free” trade -- and then took a wrecking ball to the Republican Party establishment. The GOP fat cats fled, to the extent that they could, to Hillary Clinton’s Big Tent, hoping to return to their old turf after The Donald was crushed by the expected Clinton landslide. With their desertion, the GOP-Dem duopoly became dangerously lopsided, unbalanced -- an instability made even more complex by the Democrats’ Bernie Sanders insurgency.
When Trump was declared the winner, Clinton’s Big Tent -- the de facto headquarters of the “truer and more fully explicit ruling class party” -- panicked. The gyro went whacky. For multinational capital, the quest for worldwide full spectrum dominance is an existential issue; they must achieve it, or die. *What they have shown over the past several weeks is that they are willing, and even eager, to bring down the whole edifice of U.S. social and political “checks and balances” -- freedom of speech and other civil liberties -- to sustain the momentum of their neoliberal offensive in the world.
The true hegemony of the ruling class consists of more than simply control of the “commanding heights” of the economy and positions of governmental power, but also of the authoritative political narrative. The “fake news” bugaboo is a Trojan Horse for speech and thought control, a ruse to reestablish the imperial narrative in all its domestic and international dimensions. It ain’t about “pizza-gate” -- it’s about corporate global power. The mass of folks that are repelled and frightened by Donald Trump and his gang of generalissimos and billionaires may think that they are in a common struggle alongside Clinton and Jill Stein and much of Black leadership against “fascism” in the person of Trump, but the forces in Clinton’s Big Tent are fascists, too, of the global corporate, endless war and deepening austerity kind, who are now drawing up lists of who can speak and what subjects can properly be discussed. The same people that brought us the Mass Black Incarceration State and preventive detention without charge or trial, too big to jail, systematic Black urban displacement, Kill Lists, proxy jihadist wars and universal surveillance of humanity. The Democrats are emphatically not waging a fight against “fascism.” Instead, they have unleashed a war hysteria.
“The ‘fake news’ bugaboo is a Trojan Horse for speech and thought control, a ruse to reestablish the imperial narrative in all its domestic and international dimensions.”
There is no proof that the Russians hacked the Democrats and gave the documents to Wikileaks. But, what if they did? Does that negate an election? So what if Russian leadership would rather have one U.S. politician rather than another with their fingers on the button? If Vladimir Putin had shouted his preference for U.S. president to the world and provided voluminous documentation, false or factual, to back up his endorsement, why would that be cause for Americans to abort their own process? (The Russians complained that the U.S. interfered with their elections in 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102302131.html) – but Putin*continued to pursue good relations with the U.S.)
There is nothing “grassroots” about this orchestration of hearings, investigations and legislation aimed at implicating Russia in some conjured aggression against the United States electoral system -- actions that not only did not happen, but should have no legal implications for Americans*even if what is alleged to have occurred -- that the Russians selectively released hacked (factual) documents to embarrass Democrats -- did happen.
What is most shocking about the whole affair is that the orchestrators of this War Hysteria/Dump Trump campaign seem to be oblivious to the effect it will have on the people that voted for Trump, representing roughly half of the country. A recount is one thing, but Trump’s supporters will surely not accept the negation of their vote by Hamilton Electors (http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/40812-electoral-college-electors-have-written-a-letter-to-james-clapper) or other machinations. The U.S. criminal justice (and now “Homeland Security”) systems were designed to contain, control and incarcerate the “Others” of society, mainly Black and brown people. If the whites of that political space called “Middle America” decide to burn the house down, there will be no stopping them. Most of the “first responders” are Trump people.
“A recount is one thing, but Trump’s supporters will surely not accept the negation of their vote by Hamilton Electors (http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/40812-electoral-college-electors-have-written-a-letter-to-james-clapper) or other machinations.”
Are the orchestrators deliberately provoking a civil war, or have they lost their minds over the prospect of better relations with the Russians? I think it’s clearly the latter; they haven’t even begun to consider the mass blowback from Trumpland. But, December 19, the date for certification of the electoral vote, is almost upon us.
The election was, of course, stolen – in the usual manner, by Republican Americans. As investigative reporter Greg Palast told Democracy Now!: (https://democracynow.org/2016/12/13/greg_palast_by_rejecting_recount_is?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=483f782aab-Daily_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-483f782aab-191306229)
“Well, you know, people are looking for Russians, but what we had is a real Jim Crow election. Trump, for example, in Michigan, won by less than 11,000 votes. It looks like we had about 55,000 voters, mostly minorities, removed by this racist system called Crosscheck. In addition, you had a stoppage—even before the courts ordered the complete stop of the vote in Michigan, you had the Republican state officials completely sabotage the recount. They said, in Detroit, where there were 75,335 supposedly blank ballots for president—75,000—they said you can’t count 59 percent of the precincts, where most of the votes were missing. There were 87 machines in Detroit that were—that didn’t function. They were supposed to count about a thousand ballots each. You’re talking about a massive blockade of the black vote in Detroit and Flint, enough votes, undoubtedly, to overturn that election.”
The Democrats never mount a challenge when Jim Crow steals presidential elections. Denying Black people the franchise is kosher, under the gentlemen’s duopoly rules. But, when it comes to improving relations with Russians, the folks in Clinton’s Big Tent go Black Lives Matter on the election process: “Shut It Down!” they scream, “Shut It Down.”
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.




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How an evidence-free CIA finding alleging Russian interference in the US election was turned into an indisputable ‘truth’
December 17, 2016

By Stephen Gowans

Only a few days ago the New York Times acknowledged that the CIA finding that the Kremlin hacked the Democratic National Convention’s computers with the intention of influencing the US presidential election was based, not on evidence, but conjecture. Today, the newspaper’s reporters have forgotten their earlier caveats and have begun to treat the intelligence agency’s guess-work as an established truth.

Emblematic of the newspaper’s approach of acknowledging the uncertainty of many intelligence assessments only to quickly throw caution to the wind to embrace them as certain facts, was a December 15 report by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo in which the two reporters wrote that the “hack influenced the course, if not the outcome, of a presidential campaign.” [1] The sentence is astonishing for not only stripping the CIA finding of its immanent uncertainty, but in venturing well beyond the intelligence agency’s judgement to aver what no one could possibly know, namely, whether the release of DNC e-mails influenced the presidential campaign.

That it did, and at Clinton’s expense, is, of course, the conclusion the Democrats, if not a faction of the US ruling class associated with the Clintons, would like the US public to arrive at. In this, the New York Times has provided signal assistance as the unofficial propaganda arm of the US ruling class’s Democratic Party wing. Yet, we don’t even know if the DNC e-mails were hacked let alone by agents of the Russian government. One alternative explanation is that the e-mails were leaked by someone inside the DNC. Nevertheless, Goldman and Apuzzo claim to know far more than anyone could possibly know: that the CIA’s analysis is true despite the agency’s own admission of uncertainty and that, additionally, the Russian government intended to influence the outcome of the campaign and that its efforts bore fruit.

New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and David E. Sanger are slightly more circumspect than the omniscient Goldman and Apuzzo, but nevertheless have written of “Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election,” as if this is not a matter of conjecture but established fact. They have also mentioned Trump’s refusal “to accept Moscow’s culpability,” as if Moscow’s culpability is indisputable. [2] Sanger is a member of the Wall Street-directed foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, of which most members of the Obama cabinet are also members, as were occupants of the most significant offices of the US state, going back to at least the Carter administration. [3] The CFR is likely the body through which the anti-Trump faction of the US ruling class organizes itself.

Let’s recall how much uncertainty underlies the CIA finding which the New York Times now accepts as fact, in the same way the newspaper quickly accepted as fact an equally tentative, and evidence-free US intelligence finding that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in its war against Al Qaeda and the Islamist group’s allies, offshoots and auxiliaries. Today, “Assad’s use of chemical weapons” is bandied about in the Western media as if it were an incontrovertible fact, belying the reality that the US intelligence finding on the matter was based on belief, not evidence, and that there was, by Washington’s own admission, no “smoking gun.” What’s more, the idea that the Syrian military would use chemical weapons, which are less effective than conventional arms, when doing so would have crossed a redline drawn by Washington, and invited a more muscular US intervention in Syria, never made sense.

The US newspaper of record reported that “two Russian hacking groups” were “found at work inside the D.N.C. network,” “Cozy Bear and “Fancy Bear.” Cozy Bear, according to the newspaper, “may or may not be associated with the F.S.B., the main successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B” (emphasis added.) Fancy Bear, it turns out, also may or may not be associated with the Russian government, in this case, “the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency.” Nevertheless, the New York Times revealed that both groups are “believed” by Washington to be Russian government operations (though they may or may not be.) [4]

How was this belief arrived at? Through a process the New York Times describes as attribution, “the skill of identifying a cyberattacker.” This is a fancy way of describing conjecture. Attribution is “more art than science,” the newspaper concedes, while acknowledging that it “is often impossible to name an attacker with absolute certainty.” [5] Finding water with a divining rod, and predicting the future with a Ouija board, are also more art than science, and both involve the process of attribution, the skill of identifying hidden water and hidden events, though it is often impossible to find water, and foretell the future, with absolute certainty. Divination and CIA analyses apparently have much in common.

Given that the CIA analysis appears to be more art than science, and more conjecture than evidence, how do we get from the multiple agnostic claims that a) the Russian government may or may not have initiated a cyberattack against the DNC; b) it’s impossible to say with certainty that it did; and c) it’s all guess work, to a definite declaration, as appeared in the New York Times on December 13? “Russian cyberpower invaded the U.S.”

The FBI began investigating the allegation that Russia meddled in the election over the summer. [6] The bureau doubted “the CIA had a basis for coming to (its) conclusions.” [7] As a consequence, the organization refused to “sign on to the public statement attributing the hacking to Russia.” [8]

The reasons for the FBI scepticism were outlined by the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti and Eric Lichtblau on December 11. The reporters wrote that the CIA’s conclusion “is based on “circumstantial evidence…that others,” namely, the FBI and the CIA’s sister intelligence organizations “feel does not support firm judgments.” [9] “People familiar with the hacking investigation long have said that…it would be difficult to prove in court,” added the Wall Street Journal’s Shane Harris. [10] Intelligence “findings are more grounded in analysis” wrote Harris, as opposed to “the evidentiary standards the FBI typically uses.” [11] One of the “core realities of intelligence analysis,” reported Mazzetti and Lichtblau, is that they “are often made in a fog of uncertainty…based on putting together shards of a mosaic that do not reveal a full picture, and can always be affected by human biases.” [12] Echoing this, Washington Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous wrote that officials “are frequently looking at information that is fragmentary. They also face issues…that (make) it hard – if not impossible – to conclusively detect the Kremlin’s elusive fingerprints.” [13] (Note that in this sentence the truth of what is to be proved in already assumed. The Kremlin’s fingerprints are present—it’s just difficult to detect them.)

In short, the FBI “wants facts and tangible evidence.” The CIA “is more comfortable drawing inferences.” The FBI thinks “in terms of…can we prove this.” The CIA makes “judgment calls.” High confidence for the CIA “doesn’t mean they can prove it.” [14]

Other intelligence agencies, apart from the FBI, also doubted the CIA’s judgment call.

The CIA analysis “fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies,” reported the Washington Post, owing to “disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment.” [15] One disagreement related to the absence of “specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin” directing the hacking. It seemed that the people the CIA suspected of carrying out the hack were not employees of the Russian government. [16]

This called into question an earlier, October 7, finding from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In a joint declaration, the US intelligence czars said they were “confident that the Russian Government directed the … compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” But the intelligence community’s confidence didn’t rest on direct evidence. Nothing tied the suspected hackers to the Kremlin. The finding was, instead, based on a belief—“that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities” and that “the alleged hacked e-mails … are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.” [17] In other words, the intelligence community had no proof.

The October 7 statement also referred to the hacked e-mails as “alleged,” suggesting that despite its claimed confidence, Washington wasn’t even sure the DNC servers were hacked. The e-mails could have been leaked from within.

It is a reality of everyday life that decisions are made in the face of uncertainty. We can’t always defer action until evidence accumulates. For this reason, the US intelligence community’s efforts to arrive at a judgment based on fragmentary evidence and analysis is perfectly reasonable. But once decisions that are, in effect, working hypotheses become received doctrine—when “the DNC servers may or may not have been hacked, and the Kremlin may or may not be the perpetrator” becomes — “Russian cyberpower invaded the U.S,” as the New York Times put it— the process degenerates into propaganda.

None of this is to acknowledge the sheer hypocrisy of the US government and the mimetic news media accusing Russia of interfering in the US election when no other country has as extensively meddled in the electoral outcomes of foreign countries as has the United States. The New York Times offered a token admission of US culpability. ”The United States, too, has carried out cyberattacks, and in decades past the C.I.A. tried to subvert foreign elections,” wrote Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane. [18]

But the reporters didn’t mention the sheer extent of US election meddling. Since World War II, Washington has grossly interfered in the elections of 30 foreign countries. Over the same period, the US government has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments and attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders–different means to accomplish the same end, namely, interfering in the politics of foreign countries. [19]

And while in decades past it may have been that the “CIA tried to subvert foreign elections,” as the New York Times acknowledges, what isn’t mentioned is that in recent decades foreign election meddling has been transferred to the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy. The organization’s first president acknowledged that the NED’s role is to carry out overtly the task of influencing foreign elections that the CIA had once done covertly. The NED has been active in attempts to influence electoral outcomes in Serbia, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. The NED interferes in the elections of countries in which the sitting government has refused to fall in behind the United States as self-appointed leader of the international order, preferring self-determination and sovereignty. So Washington has manoeuvred to install biddable governments in these countries that are more amenable to acquiescing to US leadership, which is to say, submitting to the international dictatorship of the United States.

None of the foregoing is to suggest that Washington is getting its comeuppance. On the contrary, there’s no evidence that Russia intervened in the US election, much less that the DNC servers were hacked. (A group of former US intelligence officers believe the e-mails were leaked, but like the finding of current serving intelligence analysts that the e-mails were hacked, this is all based on “analysis,” not evidence. [20])

The incident should remind us that the US government often makes allegations on the basis of nothing more than conjecture, which “can always be affected by human biases,” as the New York Times concedes, [21] or political pressure, as the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq affirms. No less worthy of our attention is the reality that the mass news media have agendas which comport with the interests of their owners, that their owners belong to the economic elite, and that the economic and political elites are intertwined. This explains why the mass media act as conduits of propaganda through which evidence-free intelligence findings are regularly disseminated to the public to manufacture consent for, or least acquiescence to, elite agendas; Iraq’s non-existent WMD are emblematic of a fiction attributed to an intelligence “failure” that was used as a casus belli to rally support for war.

One can only guess—like the CIA guessing at who leaked the DNC e-mails and why—that there is a struggle within the US ruling class over the outcome of the US election, with the faction to which the Clintons belong resolved to prevent Trump from becoming president, or, at least, undermining his presidency. The reasons are likely due to intolerance of Trump’s promised departures from core US foreign policy tenets, especially his professed desire to treat Russia as a partner rather than adversary, his repudiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and other heterodoxies.

1. Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, “U.S. faces tall hurdles in detaining or deterring Russian hackers,” The New York Times, December 15, 2016

2. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and David E. Sanger, “Obama says U.S. will retaliate for Russia’s election meddling,” The New York Times, December 15, 2016

3. Laurence H.Shoup. Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014, Monthly Review Press, 2015

4. Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, “The perfect weapon: How Russian cyberpower invaded the U.S.,” The New York Times, December 13, 2016

5. Ibid.

6. Mark Mazzetti and Eric Lichtblau, “C.I.A. judgement on Russia built on swell of evidence,” The New York Times, December 11, 2016

7. Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous, “FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers in Russia’s motives un 2016 hacks,” The Washington Post, December 10, 2016

8. Shane Harris, “Donald Trump fuels rift with CIA over Russian hack,” The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2016

9. Mark and Lichtblau

10. Shane Harris, “Donald Trump fuels rift with CIA over Russian hack,” The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2016

11. Harris, December 11, 2016

12. Mazzetti and Lichtblau

13. Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous, “FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers in Russia’s motives un 2016 hacks,” The Washington Post, December 10, 2016

14. Ibid

15. Adam Entous, Ellen Nakaskis, and Greg Miller, “Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House,” The Washington Post, December 9, 2016

16. Ibid

17. “Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security,” October 7, 2016

18. Lipton, Sanger and Shane

19. William Blum, “The Anti-Empire Report,” No. 146, November 6, 2016

20. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, “US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims,” Common Dreams, December 15, 2016

21. Mazzetti and Lichtblau

https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/how-an-evidence-free-cia-finding-alleging-russian-interference-in-the-us-election-was-turned-into-an-indisputable-truth/

One can only guess—like the CIA guessing at who leaked the DNC e-mails and why—that there is a struggle within the US ruling class over the outcome of the US election, with the faction to which the Clintons belong resolved to prevent Trump from becoming president, or, at least, undermining his presidency. The reasons are likely due to intolerance of Trump’s promised departures from core US foreign policy tenets, especially his professed desire to treat Russia as a partner rather than adversary, his repudiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and other heterodoxies.

That is the big question - why are they doing this? What do they see as the end product of this undermining of Trump? Is it something on a par with the Republican out-going governor signing legislation reducing the power of the in-coming Democrat governor? It looks more serious than that, but who knows?