What to make of this...

Yesterday, President Obama ordered up a report on Russian hacking and the 2016 election. Lo, this morning's (12/10) New York Times.

"WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks."

Who? What? Why? Any thoughts?      Margaret Steinfels

Comments

[Margaret Steinfels]

And the Washington Post has this: "The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter." http://wapo.st/2h9HyW3

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Marcy Wheeler's take on this is worth a read, as is most everything she writes.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/09/unpacking-new-cia-leak-dont-ignore-aluminum-tube-footnote/

[Nancy K]

It sounds like something we might have done and probably are still doing. Our sins look so much worse on someone else.

[turcopolier]

Margaret

1- The analytic opinions of any intelligence agency are just that - opinions. The notion that a president or anyone else should uncritically accept those opinions as truth is ludicrous. The intel guys would love that because they would effectively be the government in such a circumstance. 2- None of the Democrats hacked have denied the truth of the material revealed by WikiLeaks. 3 - The newspapers are saying that the RNC was also hacked and that the Rooshans slyly did not give the fruits of that hack to WikiLeaks. Sean Spicer, the communications head of the RNC forcefully told Smerconish in the last hour that "intelligence agencies" working with the RNC tell them that the RNC WAS NOT hacked at all. 4 -It is being argued by the media types that the people now at CIA are different from the people who enabled Operation Enduring Clusterf--k (the invasion and occupation of Iraq) by their bending of an NIE on Ira'qs supposed (but non-existent) WMD. Unfortunately for that notion, Phil Mudd - retired CIA and CNN fixture now told Smerconish today that his contemporaries still run CIA and thatvthey were the Iraq WMD crew. Basically this kerfluffle over Russian evilness is IMO just part of the campaign to de-legitimize Trump even before he is inaugurated. pl

[MRW]

Love your #1, Colonel.

[turcopolier]

Nancy K et al

BTW the US government routinely seeks to influence the outcome of foreign elections. We have done that since the aftermath of WW2 when we went "all in" in seeking to defeat the possibility of the establishment of Communist governments in France and Italy. Your husband probably remembers Bill Clinton's foray into Israeli politics when he sent advisers like Carville to help Natanyahu's opponents. pl

[alistair]

As long as they rely on unnamed sources and use weasel words like "high confidence", I'd advise taking anything the NYT and WaPo say with a dumptruck load of salt.

[Margaret Steinfels]

The comments questioning her analysis are also worth a read.

[FourthAndLong]

Evidently a peek at the Dems game plan until the midterms. They will pound this retooled McCarthyism for all it's worth. Why not mention the Citizen's United decision in this context? OK for foreign agents to 'donate' megabucks to US politicians, right?? Hypocrisy.

[The Twisted Genius]

Margaret,

I agree with Nancy. Even if this proves to be a brilliant Kremlin directed info op, it pales in comparison to our spending five billion dollars and a bag of cookies to install a corrupt and murderous regime in Kiev. I remember the pallet of cash being offloaded at the Kiev airport by our Embassy personnel.

[johnf]

" Basically this kerfluffle over Russian evilness is IMO just part of the campaign to de-legitimize Trump even before he is inaugurated."

A very similar (and successful) campaign has been waged against the Leader of the British opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. He was elected, on a left wing platform, by the overwelming majority of Labour Party members in the country, but unflinchingly opposed by the majority of his fellow Labour MPs in the Commons who are largely neo-con, neo-liberal identity politics Blairites.

Everything, including the kitchen sink, has been thrown at him not only by his fellow Labour MPs - who refused to serve in his shadow cabinet and even engineered a re-election which he won with an even greater majority - but by the whole political press and media. No story has been too trivial (or untrue) not to be included in the daily catalogue of his blunders and ineptitudes. This has been going on for over a year now with the result that not only his own ratings but those of his party have sunk through the floor. That's the thing about the elites on both sides of the Atlantic, they really don't care what they destroy - even democracy and its institutions - in their determination to cling onto power.

Trump will be exposed to very similar treatment from day one but I think he has a far better chance of surviving it. Corbyn as a politician is a comparative innocent. Trump is a canny street fighter who relishes combat and knows that - such is the contempt the MSM is held in - the more they attack him the more the people will back him. His tweet today about the Clinton emails being leaked by the Russians was perfect - (roughly) " The people who are saying the Russians leaked the Clinton emails are the same people who told us there were WMDs."

Corbyn has not yet learnt to turn the media against itself. Nigel Farage is far better at it.

[The Twisted Genius]

Why would Russia not want to influence the outcome of our election? Clinton would clearly pursue policies in Syria and the Ukraine that were detrimental to Russia. She gave every indication that her administration would seek confrontation with Russia that could lead to war. Russia would be negligent not to try to prevent that. It's not that they would have wanted to help Trump. They just prefer him to World War III.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Ms. Steinfels,

You might remember from a past SST thread that most of us SST pilgrims from outside the USA heartily wished Hillary Clinton to lose. The whole world saw that, during the election, she and her cabal used every dirty trick in the book to win. Now, after the "unexpected" loss of this mendacious warmonger, we are observing a new set of dirty tricks to delegitimatize the election. Your president, whose legacy got repudiated by the voters, is leading the effort. I sincerely hope that this gambit will not work, but backfire. I also sincerely hope that Trump will pay you people back in your own coin once he is sworn in.
I and my friends think that, since broomstick one and members of her coven like Madeline Albright, Samantha Power, Victoria Nuland, etc. are now out of power, fewer people will be killed in MENA, and fewer countries will be destroyed. The blood of countless innocents are on their hands, and despite what they still claim, this was not worth "it".

Ishmael Zechariah

[paulmeli]

"Evidently a peek at the Dems game plan until the midterms"

As long as the Dems blame everyone and everything for their loss(es) rather than own up to their failure to understand voters needs they are unlikely to win another election.

[Margaret Steinfels]

Yes, I do remember very well.

And you probably remember that I was taken to be an ardent Clinton supporter. I was certainly opposed to Trump and voted for Clinton. However, I was, and among those, who during the election lamented that we had to spend so much time criticizing the Republicans and Trump in particular. We were looking forward to the day when we would having Clinton "to kick around again"; meaning that in the face of two bad choices, she was the least bad.

I don't recall that you were specifically a Trump fan, but you won't mind my saying, I hope, that you should be careful what you wish for.

[Richard]

This in particular caught my eye

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government

Just do a Google search and you will find that the Podesta Group itself actively lobbied for Russian interests.

[Tyler]

Glad to see that the CIA can take time from arming IS to engage in palace intrigue. Good for them! I too take the unverified anonymous "reports" from government officials as gospel truth as long as they confirm my biases AND allow for the foreign policy the CIA wants to engage in.

So further proving that irony is God's sense of humor, you have the KGB analogue in the US attempting a coup due to a populist leader whom goes against their entrenched interests. Where have I seen this before?

[elaine]

Bob Baer (former CIA) was on CNN basically calling for new elections based on alleged
Russian involvement in the elections.

[kooshy]

Colonel I think this Russian hacking news, and newly adaptation of "Fake News" by MSM and the election losers, is a renewed attempt to limit Internet and access to it. IMO the borg has understood and learned how damaging the open unregulated internet can be to Borg' nearly total information flew control.

[Dabbler]

It is indeed a new set of dirty tricks. The mainstream media is reporting the disparate events in a manner that echoes the old tale of the blind man examining an elephant. Here is a partial explication:

1. "Intelligence reports of Russian hacks to swing election results" - Assume for the moment that the Russians did do it and for that purpose, although there's no proof above the assertion of government agencies. As the Col. says, no one denies the content of the emails. Debbie Schultz did have to step down; Donna Brazil did league questions, etc.

2. "Faithless electors" - A red-state-wide effort is underway to unmoor Trump electors from their pledges. Lawrence Lessig, a law professor who himself ran for a short period of time, says (paraphrased) "We're just trying to help the electors do what they're supposed to do, exercise their judgment as to what's best for the country rather than be forced to follow the requirements of state laws that we think may be unconstitutional".

3. "Fake news" - The NYT, WAPO, and others, being the ultimate cultural and political arbitrators, are vociferously campaigning to establish that what they say is fake news is unreliable (still disappointed that SST didn't make the WAPO list). NYT and WAPO have assured us that what they publish is not fake.

4. "Recount" - The recount has not been requested nationwide, but only in the three states most likely to swing the result for Hillary. There is an obvious and unreported disconnect between the nationwide confidence building result that Jill Stein proclaimed and the obvious target of the actual recount effort. If the three recounts were to succeed, Jill Stein and her goals would not benefit. Hillary joined the Stein effort only reluctantly and couldn't well have requested it herself after condemning Trump for being unwilling to automatically accept election results

5. Points 2 and 4 above can work in combination if neither completely succeeds on its own.

Put these things and maybe others together and you have a coordinated plan to swing the electoral college results for, feeling that, to severely wound Trump. The latter result may be more preferable to the Borg in someways because it would be an easier pill for deplorables to swallow.

Caveats: I'm not much happy with Trump; I went third-party. Also, I'm not close-minded regarding the possibility of people working together to achieve an end e.g., if more than one Borgista are working together to push the above items, although anyone who notices what's going on and points it out becomes a conspiracy theorist.

[Walter]

What r the "CIA's interests"? They r not supposed to have interests or foreign policy goals, right? could someone please explain the discrepancy between what they r supposed to b doing w what they r actually doing and why

[LeaNder]

Where have I seen this before?

I know two responses to one person may slightly indicate stalking. But where, tell me?

[Eric Newhill]

Margaret,
Beyond some simple stupid meme that will only appeal to those who have already lost and were already convinced that Trump is Satan incarnate, this whole effort is a sorry joke. It won't work.

Does anyone really think that Wikileaks had any impact on the election? There was nothing there beyond Sanders getting screwed and the Sanders supporters already knew that. How did Wikileaks influence anyone to switch from Clinton to Trump? How? Where is the evidence that there was an effect?

Where is the evidence that any voting machines were hacked and votes actually changed from Clinton to Trump? Where?

This is a bunch of cry babies showing just how infantile they really are. No one is going to be fooled by it.

Besides, a lot of Americans kind of like Putin's style

[turcopolier]

walter

CIA is "invested" in the covert actions they are tasked with by the NCA. They don't want to lose. this result from their descent from OSS and and SOE, neither of which were really intelligence organizations. they were mainly covert action agencies. pl

[hemeantwell]

I think that it's not only a campaign to de-legitimize Trump, it's also a campaign to fight off criticism of HRC, her lousy campaign, and the political tendency she represents in the Democratic party. My guess is that even in the short run opposition to Trump will not stem from this, but from his policies. The Clintonites want to try to quell insurgencies by using this claim to supplement whatever less overt forms of maneuvering they will engage in to stay in power against internal opposition. It gives something for the HRCbots to say when their accusations of racism and sexism fall apart. Re that, here's the finale of a good article from Jacobin today:

.....Election Day

Since I lived there [a small town in CA], the population of my childhood town has nearly doubled, fueled in part by telecommuting and cash migrating from Silicon Valley. Median income has risen to $47,000, but the median home price fell 43 percent between 2003 and 2013. The school has moved to more appropriate permanent buildings.

This November, the town (and 362 other Placer County, California precincts not unlike it) voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, 51.1 percent to 39.5 percent.

But it’s hard to blame sexism or racism for Clinton’s loss.

On Election Day, the people of Placer County also voted for Kamala Harris, a black woman, to be their US senator. Her vote share? 63 percent. And her vote tally? 16,178 more than Clinton’s.