Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

[TPreston]

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

 

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

 

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

The Post's Ellen Nakashima goes over the events and discusses the hacker groups responsible. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

 

The Obama administration has been debating for months how to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions, with White House officials concerned about escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton’s campaign.

 

In September, during a secret briefing for congressional leaders, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, according to officials present.

The Trump transition team dismissed the findings in a short statement issued Friday evening. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again,’ ” the statement read.

 

Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence community’s findings about Russian hacking.

 

“I don’t believe they interfered” in the election, he told Time magazine this week. The hacking, he said, “could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

 

The CIA shared its latest assessment with key senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week, in which agency officials cited a growing body of intelligence from multiple sources. Agency briefers told the senators it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

 

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

 

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said in a television interview that the “Russian government is not the source.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html

 

[troysavary]

Speaking of crazed conspiracy theories. The "evil Russians". Hillary lost because of the Russians, because of the alt-right, because of gamergate (yes, I actually saw people claiming that), because of Kek. Hillary supporters cannot accept that Hillary lost because of Hillary. They need to find something ridiculous to blame.

[TPreston]

9 minutes ago, troysavary said:

Speaking of crazed conspiracy theories.

The CIA is not the same as infowars.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

6 minutes ago, TPreston said:

The CIA is not the same as infowars.

That's correct.

 

They are much worse  or better, depending on your perspective  

[hagjohn]

Not surprised at all that Russia was behind these leaks and for getting Comrade Trump elected. Anyone who has 1/2 a brain could have figured out the leaks were only one sided and were meant to hurt Hillary. I can't believe the amount of so-called patriotic people who don't seem to have a problem with this.

 

And, no, I did not vote for Hillary. I voted for Evan McMullin.

[FunkyMike]

Love these fake news. Obama will only receive the CIA report later in January and already there are articles with no proof coming out.

 

Looks like the CIA folk are scrambling to secure their jobs and existence based on the lies they have created.

 

Weiner's laptop was with the NYPD and then the FBI. Everyone that needed a copy of that pedos laptop had one.

[hagjohn]

1 minute ago, FunkyMike said:

Love these fake news. Obama will only receive the report later in January.

 

Looks like the CIA folk are scrambling to secure their jobs and existence based on the lies they have created.

 

Weiner's laptop was with the NYPD and then the FBI. Everyone that needed a copy of that pedos laptop had one.

Secure their jobs? Anyone who comes up with evidence of this will be fired as soon as Trump gets in. Frankly, the Weiner thing and Hillary's server pales in comparison to this. Maybe we should have a truth commission to see who in our election process and in our gov't knew about this.

[Vandalsquad]

27 minutes ago, TPreston said:

The CIA is not the same as infowars.

Like all those WMD's the CIA told us where in Iraq right? 

 

Regardless of who leaked the emails they where the TRUTH, and not fabricated lies.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

20 minutes ago, hagjohn said:

Not surprised at all that Russia was behind these leaks and for getting Comrade Trump elected.

"what goes around comes around" and Karma is a female.

 

If the very thought of Russia having interfered with the U.S. elections is so worrisome to you, where were you when the U.S. was interfering with the internal affairs of the former Soviet States and all the other countries out there?

[TPreston]

 

1 minute ago, Vandalsquad said:

Like all those WMD's the CIA told us where in Iraq right? 

Then like McConnell don't ever use their findings ever again.

Quote

Regardless of who leaked the emails they where the TRUTH, and not fabricated lies.

Like the satanic stuff right?

[troysavary]

Assange says he didn't get the info from Russia. Russia says they didn't leak the info. Sorry, but I find both of those sources more credible than "a senior official" or the CIA. But, assuming the paranoid narrative is true, and Russia did leak some info that was already readily available anyway, and this did swing the election, how is that worse than what the CIA has been doing? If America meddles in other countries elections, they must expect the same to happen to them. Doing it peacefully through an information dump is definitely better than staging coups like the US has done in the Arab Spring and in the Ukraine.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

5 minutes ago, troysavary said:

Doing it peacefully through an information dump is definitely better than staging coups like the US has done in the Arab Spring and in the Ukraine.

+100500

[DocM]

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/us/politics/hacking-russia-election-fears-barack-obama-donald-trump.html

 

"U.S. Officials Defend Integrity of Vote, Despite Hacking Fears"

 

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

40 minutes ago, troysavary said:

4 minutes ago, DocM said:

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/us/politics/hacking-russia-election-fears-barack-obama-donald-trump.html

 

"U.S. Officials Defend Integrity of Vote, Despite Hacking Fears"

 

 

Quote

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

/thread 

[TPreston]

not sure where anyone here claimed the election was hacked, nice strawman though

[troysavary]

1 minute ago, TPreston said:

not sure where anyone here claimed the election was hacked, nice strawman though

Wasn't the point of the recounts to counter supposed hacking?

 

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

2 minutes ago, TPreston said:

not sure where anyone here claimed the election was hacked, nice strawman though

What's the issue then?

 

Is it that the American voters watch RT?

[TPreston]

1 minute ago, troysavary said:

Wasn't the point of the recounts to counter supposed hacking?

 

Nobody here cited any recounts.

 

Just now, Mirumir said:

What's the issue then?

Quote

individuals with connections to the Russian government provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman

 

[troysavary]

Just now, TPreston said:

Nobody here cited any recounts

A discussion can go to related subjects, you know. Is there a rule we must stick to only discussing the OP?

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Quote

individuals with connections to the Russian government provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman

@TPreston Did the Russian government or the hackers affiliated with them fabricate the contents of those emails?

[TPreston]

2 minutes ago, Mirumir said:

Did the Russian government or the hackers affiliated with them fabricate the contents of those emails?

No but thanks for admitting you believe this is the case. You do know this is a crime right ?

[SierraSonic]

I love how people are only worried about party politics and not everything else that these allegations imply.

[troysavary]

14 minutes ago, TPreston said:

No but thanks for admitting you believe this is the case. You do know this is a crime right ?

Funny how Julian was the darling of the left when he was exposing Bush secrets, but now he is the Devil himself.

[DocM]

And the allegations reek of party politics, and karma wrt to Clinton and Obama being OK with sending their minions to help leftist governments in electoral trouble but they can't take the blowback.

[TPreston]

3 minutes ago, DocM said:

And the allegations reek of party politics, and karma wrt to Clinton and Obama being OK with sending their minions to help leftist governments in electoral trouble but they can't take the blowback.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-hack.html?_r=0

Stay Classy, I'm sure that data wont in any way be used to blackmail republicans.

 

Nothing to see here.

 

5 minutes ago, troysavary said:

Funny how Julian was the darling of the left when he was exposing Bush secrets, but now he is the Devil himself.

 

Funny how his new masters only gave him the contents of the DNC not the RNC considering both were hacked.