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

[DocM]

It's so bloody entertaining to see progressives flipping out; doing a 180° spin as regards election hacking within 2 months (Obama assured us it wasn't possible), and then after losing adopt the John Birch Society position as regards Russia  

Edited December 15, 2016 by DocM

[TPreston]

5 minutes ago, DocM said:

It's so bloody entertaining to see progressives flipping out; doing a 180° spin as regards election hacking the election within 2 months (Obama assured us it wasn't possible), and then after losing adopt the John Birch Society position as regards Russia  

Hacking the election != Hacking the DNC/RNC

[DocM]

And hacking DNC was made a LOT easier by it being connected to an unsecured, illegal, non air-gapped server in Hillary's basement. It HAD been hacked. 

 

RNC was likely not hacked; FBI reported the "GOP hack" was a third party site with old info. Not a threat, and many of their core systems are air-gapped. 

 

The real fix is to sandbox all election campaign connections, preferably on a Cyber Command server, with each session being a temporary virtual machine whose traffic is turned into streaming content. Look up the AirGap or Isla system.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

 

Quote

Did Russia Elect Trump?

 

Foreign espionage is routine. Careless use of unsecure email shouldn't be.

 

...

 

Using intelligence resources to advance one’s national interest is what all governments do. The objective is to maintain secrecy, but no one should be too surprised when such activity is detected. Attempts to influence foreign opinion in a targeted country or within a targeted group is referred to in the trade as covert action. All major state players engage in covert action to a greater or lesser extent. The CIA certainly uses its media assets worldwide to place stories supportive of politicians and parties favored by the administration in power in Washington. I would have to assume that President Barack Obama has, for example, approved CIA-generated favorable press coverage of endangered politicians like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose policies he strongly supports.

 

If a covert action involves the media, it will sometimes consist of totally invented stories that usually are quickly exposed for what they are, or accounts that are partly or largely true but also contain spin or some untruths to undermine or influence a prevailing narrative. If the stories are crafted subtly enough, they will be accepted as true by most of the public. Stories placed in that fashion by an intelligence agency, frequently acting through surrogates, can, upon exposure, be considered part of the “fake news” that has so traumatized the media of late.

 

Far better than fake news from the intelligence-agency point of view is real news, which is why exposure of the Clinton-Podesta-DNC emails was so effective. They were undeniably true, and they bring to mind another Russian intelligence operation in 2014, where the hacked phone of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was exploited to reveal that Nuland thought little of America’s European allies. The lesson that should be taken home from those errors in judgment is that we create our own vulnerabilities that others will exploit. If the DNC wanted to load the dice to make Bernie Sanders go away, it would have been best not to say so in an email. If John Podesta did not trust Hillary Clinton’s impulsive decisionmaking, he should not have written that opinion down and sent it off electronically. If Nuland wanted to commit an act of fornication on Europeans , she should not have discussed it on an unsecured cell phone. 

 

[ensiform]

But where is the evidence or even anecdotal evidence / proof of the election itself being tampered with?   Release that info or stop spreading FUD CIA.  Using a phishing scam and hacking an email server months before the election does not equate to hacking the election and there is no evidence of it.

[DocM]

On 12/10/2016 at 10:34 AM, TPreston said:

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

Only DNC was hacked, starting in 2013 and they ignored the feds warnings as late as September 2015. Dumb. The "RNC hack" wasn't the RNC but a third party site with outdated info. Per FBI.

[DConnell Member]

2 hours ago, Mirumir said:

Did Russia Elect Trump?

If they did, then I just have one thing to say, "Thank you Comrade Putin!"

[TPreston]

Quote

CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Fox News has independently confirmed that Russian-backed cyber militias were targeting US systems and influential US persons in the summer of 2015, and the operation evolved into an effort to interfere in the US election. These operations were sanctioned by the highest levels of the Russian government. 

After the FBI director’s July statement about the Clinton email investigation, a government source says there was a reluctance to further insert government institutions and their assessments into an already deeply politicized election cycle. A leading cybersecurity expert says the intelligence community reviewed the techniques, tactics, and procedures leveraged in the attacks and made the link to Russia. In October, the agencies and Homeland Security, or DHS, went on the record, though Putin was not mentioned by name. 

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/15/after-weeks-denials-fox-news-independently-confirms-russian-interference-us-election/214837

 

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2016/12/15/51544/fnc-kf-20161215-herridgerussiahack

Edited December 16, 2016 by TPreston

[wakjak]

Shh don't bring facts. That's like kryptonite for the right wing / conservatives. 

[Yogurth]

1 hour ago, TPreston said:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/15/after-weeks-denials-fox-news-independently-confirms-russian-interference-us-election/214837

 

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2016/12/15/51544/fnc-kf-20161215-herridgerussiahack

Just by skimping the front page of mediamatters, both independent and real news and the site name are an oxymoron. I wonder how high is the fake level of the particular news on hacking?

[TPreston]

3 minutes ago, Yogurth said:

Just by skimping the front page of mediamatters, both independent and real news and the site name are an oxymoron. I wonder how high is the fake level of the particular news on hacking?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/20/growing-evidence-suggest-recent-hacks-work-russian-backed-cyber-militias.html

[Jim K Global Moderator]

7 minutes ago, TPreston said:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/20/growing-evidence-suggest-recent-hacks-work-russian-backed-cyber-militias.html

hmmm...if Fox News is now reporting this as well ....

[wakjak]

2 hours ago, Yogurth said:

Just by skimping the front page of mediamatters, both independent and real news and the site name are an oxymoron. I wonder how high is the fake level of the particular news on hacking?

I mean, calling everything that gets posted "fake news", got old after the first day. 

 

If it's only fake news because it doesn't cater to your political bias, then you're just rebranding it. 

 

It's not fake news, it's biased news. Fake news just sounds like a better buzz word. 

 

It's ok,  you guys will get over it. 

 

If everything is fake news, then we should try and get the news sections removed from neowin.net. No point in posting news if it's all fake right? 

[JoseyWales]

I love all this "secret sources" horseshit.. Smoke and mirrors people..This has tuned into nothing but "he said, she said" with nothing to back any of it up. It's nothing more than what the CIA does best.. Obfuscation.

[troysavary]

On ‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎15 at 10:23 AM, TPreston said:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

That article provides no proof for it's allegations. The general gist is that Putin had a grudge against Clinton, therefor he is guilty. Once again, it quotes unnamed officials. Why is it ok for NBC to not name its sources, but when WikiLeaks doesn't name its source, then obviously it must be Putin? Never mind the Assange said it was a leak, not hacking that gave him the information. Provide better proof than speculation and unnamed sources.

[FunkyMike]

"Infuriated" Podesta Slams "Broken" FBI, Demands "Serious, Sustained Response" Against Russia

 

 

 

First things first, John Podesta lost and so we are surprised at the temerity of the demands in his Washington Post op-ed today... "The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and elect Donald Trump, and the failure of the FBI to adequately respond, the more shocking it gets," he begins...

 

Quote

The former acting director of the CIA has called the Russian cyberattack “the political equivalent of 9/11.” Just as after the real 9/11, we need a robust, independent investigation into what went wrong inside the government and how to better protect our country in the future.

 

As the former chair of the Clinton campaign and a direct target of Russian hacking, I understand just how serious this is. So I was surprised to read in the New York Times that when the FBI discovered the Russian attack in September 2015, it failed to send even a single agent to warn senior Democratic National Committee officials. Instead, messages were left with the DNC IT “help desk.” As a former head of the FBI cyber division told the Times, this is a baffling decision: “We are not talking about an office that is in the middle of the woods of Montana.”

 

What takes this from baffling to downright infuriating is that at nearly the exact same time that no one at the FBI could be bothered to drive 10 minutes to raise the alarm at DNC headquarters, two agents accompanied by attorneys from the Justice Department were in Denver visiting a tech firm that had helped maintain Clinton’s email server.

 

This trip was part of what FBI Director James B. Comey described as a “painstaking” investigation of Clinton’s emails, “requiring thousands of hours of effort” from dozens of agents who conducted at least 80 interviews and reviewed thousands of pages of documents. Of course, as Comey himself concluded, in the end, there was no case; it was not even a close call.

 

Comparing the FBI’s massive response to the overblown email scandal with the seemingly lackadaisical response to the very real Russian plot to subvert a national election shows that something is deeply broken at the FBI.

 

Perhaps, Mr Podesta, that is because the email 'scandal' was an actual thing - laws were potentially broken, and the evidence was there. Perhaps The FBI in fact focused on facts, not conjecture about a Russian hack? But please continue...

 

Quote

There are now reports that Vladimir Putin personally directed the covert campaign to elect Trump. So are teams of FBI agents busy looking into the reported meeting in Moscow this summer between Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser, and the Putin aide in charge of Russian intelligence on the U.S. election? What about evidence that Roger Stone was in contact with WikiLeaks and knew in advance that my hacked emails were about to be leaked? Are thousands of FBI person-hours being devoted to uncovering Trump’s tangled web of debts and business deals with foreign entities in Russia and elsewhere?

 

Meanwhile, House Republicans who had an insatiable appetite for investigating Clinton have been resistant to probing deeply into Russia’s efforts to swing the election to Trump. The media, by gleefully publishing the gossipy fruits of Russian hacks, became what the Times itself calls “a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.”

 

But the FBI’s role is particularly troubling because of its power and responsibility — and because this is part of a trend. The Justice Department’s Inspector General issued a damning report this summer about the FBI’s failure to prioritize cyberthreats more broadly.

So it's a vast right-wing conspiracy between The FBI, The Republican establishment (who hated Trump!!!), and Vladimir Putin?

Finally Podesta concludes with more warmongery and bitterness...

 

Quote

"The election is over and the damage is done, but the threat from Russia and other potential aggressors remains urgent and demands a serious and sustained response."

'Over' indeed.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-16/infuriated-podesta-slams-broken-fbi-demands-serious-sustained-response-against-russi

[FunkyMike]

Putin Lashes Out At Obama: "Show Some Proof Or Shut Up"

 

Putin has had enough of the relentless barrage of US accusations that he, personally, "hacked the US presidential election."

 

The Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that the US must either stop accusing Russia of meddling in its elections or prove it. Peskov said it was "indecent" of the United States to "groundlessly" accuse Russia of intervention in its elections.

 

“You need to either stop talking about it, or finally show some kind of proof. Otherwise it just looks very indecent”, Peskov told Reporters in Tokyo where Putin is meeting with Japan PM Abe, responding to the latest accusations that Russia was responsible for hacker attacks.

 

 

Peskov also warned that Obama's threat to "retaliate" to the alleged Russian hack is "against both American and international law", hinting at open-ended escalation should Obama take the podium today at 2:15pm to officially launch cyberwar against Russia.

 

Previously, on Thursday, Peskov told the AP the report was "laughable nonsense", while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria Zakharova accused "Western media" of being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of various power groups", and added that "it's not the general public who's being manipulated," Zakharova said. "the general public nowadays can distinguish the truth. It's the mass media that is manipulating themselves."

 

Meanwhile, on Friday Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister told state television network, Russia 24, he was "dumbstruck" by the NBC report which alleges that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in an election hack.

 

The report cited U.S. intelligence officials that now believe with a "high level of confidence" that Putin became personally involved in a secret campaign to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. "I think this is just silly, and the futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious," Lavrov added, according to the news outlet.

 

As a reminder, last night Obama vowed retaliatory action against Russia for its meddling in the US presidential election last month.  "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing," Obama told National Public Radio. 

 

US intelligence agencies in October pinned blame on Russia for election-related hacking. At the time, the White House vowed a "proportional response" to the cyberactivity, though declined to preview what that response might entail. Meanwhile, both President-elect Donald Trump, the FBI, and the ODNI have dismissed the CIA's intelligence community's assessment, for the the same reason Putin finally lashed out at Obama: there is no proof.

 

That, however, has never stopped the US from escalating a geopolitical conflict to the point of war, or beyond, so pay close attention to what Obama says this afternoon.

 

According to an NBC report, a team of analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on Friday that they believe the outgoing administration is likely to take action which could result in a significant barrier for Trump's team once he takes office in January.

 

"It is unlikely that U.S. intelligence reports will change Trump's intention to initiate a rapprochement with Moscow, but the congressional response following its own investigations could obstruct the new administration's effort," Eurasia Group analysts added.

 

At the same time, Wikileaks offered its "validation" services, tweeting that "Obama should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be authenticated to our standards if he wants them to be seen as credible."

 

 

 

We doubt Obama would take the whistleblower organization on its offer, even if he did have any Putin documents to authenticate.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-16/putin-lashes-out-obama-show-some-proof-or-shut

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Considering that the term "Russian" can have several meanings in the English language, one of which is all-encompassing, if it were a Ukrainian false flag operation and the CIA called them "Russians" for the obvious political reasons, they, the CIA, wouldn't be entirely wrong, would they?

[FunkyMike]

Obama Told Putin To "Cut It Out" On Hacking

 

In a roughly 20 minute answer to the pre-vetted and scripted question by an AP reporter, in which Obama was asked what his response to "Russian hacking" would be, Obama said there may be a response however - taking a page of the Trump playbook - he would not reveal what it will be, "just like Putin will not admit he hacked the election." The outgoing president hinted at “offensive capabilities” the U.S. possesses, but spoke broadly about his approach to preventing “some sort of cyber arms race.” His goal, the president said, was to put “some guard rails around the behavior of nations and states and our adversaries so they understand that whatever they do to us we can potentially do to them.”

 

Asked if Clinton lost because of the hacking, Obama demurred. “I'm going to let all the political pundits in this town have a long discussion about what happened in the election,” he said. But he took a shot at the media, which he has faulted for focusing too much on trivia and pseudo-scandals. “I don't think she was treated fairly during the election. I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling.” That said, he suggested Hillary's loss was due to the press obsession "with Podesta's risotto recipe", in its daily coverage of the Wikileaks revelations (when in fact, the ratio of coverage of Trump "sex scandals" to Wikileaks emails was about 95% to 5%), lambasting the media for their coverage of the campaign (ignoring that 99% of all newspapers endorsed Hillary).

 

Obama also explained why he "hadn’t been more vocal" in calling out Russian hacking before the Nov. 8 election. “In this hyper-partisan atmosphere,” he said, noting the charged political environment surrounding the election, “I wanted to make everybody understood we were playing this thing straight.”

 

Asked if he was letting Russian President Vladimir Putin “get away with” hacking the U.S. election, and whether the issue had overshadowed the presidential transition, Obama pledged continued cooperation with Trump. “There hasn’t been a lot of squabbling. What we’ve said is the facts,” he said, pointing to the intelligence community’s finding that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee. “That shouldn’t be a partisan argument,” he said and finally said that he had taken every possible measure, by telling Putin "to cut it out" on hacking.

 

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-16/obama-told-putin-cut-it-out-hacking

[FunkyMike]

Obama Blames Russia For Hacking, Slams "Domestic Propagandists" For Rise Of "Fake News"

 

As of this moment, president Obama is on his way to Hawaii, having just concluded his final press conference for 2016, and one of the last in his tenure as president. What did we learn in the rambling speech that lasted nearly two hours and saw one of the White House reporters faint? Not much that wasn't already insinuated, if not proven, repeatedly: Obama stuck to the script, and said Russia "in fact" had "hacked into the DNC," but that the actual voting process was not compromised. The White House was just trying to "let people know" what was going on, and the media interpreted the reasons.

 

While Obama took questions about Syria, China and Trump's transition team, Obama mostly spoke about Russia and the allegations by US intelligence agencies that Moscow had hacked the US election. Obama said that his administration allowed the public "to make an assessment" by letting people know that "the Russians were responsible for hacking" the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, adding that the intelligence community did its job "without political influence."

 

Citing alleged cyber security threats to the US, Obama said he had "told Putin to cut out the hacking" and indicated there would be consequences. which however he would not disclose.

 

"Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us, because we can do stuff to you," he said, adding that Washington's response to Moscow's alleged interference is being done "in a thoughtful, methodical way." "Some of it we do publicly, some of it we will do in a way that they know but not everybody will," Obama told reporters, adding that "the message will be directly received by the Russians and not publicized."

p>

 

"It's not like Putin is going around the world publicly saying, 'Look what we did, wasn't that clever' – he denies it," Obama said.

 

When meeting with Russia's President Putin in China in September, Obama said he confronted him directlyon the matter. The US leader told Moscow "to cut it out," and apparently since then Washington "didn't see further tampering with the election process."

...

Also, despite insisting Russia was responsible for making the DNC and Podesta documents public, Obama repeated several times that the actual election was not tampered with.

 

“My principal goal leading up to the election was making sure the election itself went off without a hitch, that it was not tarnished, and that it did not feed any sense in the public that somehow tampering had taken place with the actual process of voting. And we accomplished that,” Obama said.

 

“I can assure the public that there was not the kind of tampering with the voting process that was the concern,” he said later, answering another question. "The votes that were cast were counted, and counted appropriately.”

 

Incidentally, Obama did not miss the opportunity to take the low road, and mock Russia, saying "They're a small country, they're a weak country, they don't produce anything that anybody wants to buy."

...

US cyber security faces a "constant challenge," the president said, adding that Washington has been warning other countries against cyberattacks. The US has been working on creating international norms in the field of cyber security, but along with defensive capabilities Washington also has "some offensive capabilities," he warned.

 

Attributing a cyber attack to a particular government can be difficult, and is “not always provable in court,” he cautioned.

...

 

In other words, please stop criticizing the government as you are responsible for generating further partisan divisions, especially if the line of attack is similar to something the "propaganda" Russian press may put out.

 

While we would be the first to agree with this statement - if it were accurate - we can't help but think to last week's passage of the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016", whose ultimate purpose is to enforce a crackdown on any media - foreign and domestic - that the administration views as hostile.

 

Which is why we found Obama's parting statement, that "the Russians can't weaken us, but Putin can weaken us if we buy into notions that it is ok to intimidate the press", particularly ironic.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-16/obama-blames-russia-hacking-slams-domestic-propagandists-rise-fake-news

 

[DocM]

The feds tried to warn DNC starting in 2013 but they didn't listen until 2015. Dumb.

 

This doesn't change the analysis presented at the Harvard post-election campaign staffs forum, stating the one thing that moved mass quantities of independent and undecided voters to Trump was Hillary's "deplorables" comment.  

 

This and tens of thousands of Great Lakes & PA Democrats changing their registration to Republican because of the job exports before the primaries even started have zero to do with Russia or Putin, but they were what drove the November 2016 results.

 

Russia has been hacking us since there was an internet, and vice versa. This doesn't mean they influenced the election, something Obama denied would happen several times, repeating it as late as October. Then Hillary lost and now everything is deflection and denial because Democrats can't/won't deal with what they've done since 2009 that caused their fall.

 

Silly rabbits.

Edited December 17, 2016 by DocM

[LittleFroggy]

in the pursuit of finding out what is going on, I DID find a Reuters article that shows the democrats created fraud in the election

 

More votes than voters in many Detroit precincts: newspaper

 

UK ex PM states people within the democratic party released the emails

Link: INSIDE JOB? Ex-British ambassador turned Wikileaks envoy slams CIA theory Russia hacked Clinton campaign emails claiming sources were ‘disgusted’ members of her own Democratic party

 

But yet, despite people trying to discredit claims Hillary sold 20% of the US Uranium supply to: the  Russians! 

Why Hillary Clinton sold America’s uranium

 

then Jill Steins recount crashed and burned

Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes

 

So what COULD be fraud in the election on Democrats part,  Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes! imagine that! I think the snowflakes need to toughen up because the republicans dealt with obama for 8 years and didn't whine, cry, go to college for playdoh, crayons and such. they sucked it up and drove on!

[+Raze Subscriber²]

1 minute ago, LittleFroggy said:

in the pursuit of finding out what is going on, I DID find a Reuters article that shows the democrats created fraud in the election

 

More votes than voters in many Detroit precincts: newspaper

 

UK ex PM states people within the democratic party released the emails

Link: INSIDE JOB? Ex-British ambassador turned Wikileaks envoy slams CIA theory Russia hacked Clinton campaign emails claiming sources were ‘disgusted’ members of her own Democratic party

 

But yet, despite people trying to discredit claims Hillary sold 20% of the US Uranium supply

Why Hillary Clinton sold America’s uranium

 

then Jill Steins recount crashed and burned

Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes

 

So what COULD be fraud in the election on Democrats part,  Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes! imagine that! I think the snowflakes need to toughen up because the republicans dealt with obama for 8 years and didn't whine, cry, go to college for playdoh, crayons and such. they sucked it up and drove on!

They didn't? 

[Son_Of_Dad]

18 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

hmmm...if Fox News is now reporting this as well ....

Isn't everything posted with a foxnews link automagically replied to as being complete bullclap though?

[Mr. Gibs]

Quote

FBI in agreement with CIA that Russia aimed to help Trump win White House
 

By Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima

Politics

December 16 at 7:43 PM Follow @nakashimae
 

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House, officials disclosed Friday, as President Obama issued a public warning to Moscow that it could face retaliation.

 

New revelations about Comey’s position could put to rest suggestions by some lawmakers that the CIA and the FBI weren’t on the same page on Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s intentions.

The positions of Comey and Clapper were revealed in a message that CIA Director John Brennan sent to the agency’s workforce Friday.

 

“Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” Brennan said, according to U.S. officials who have seen the message.

 

The CIA and the FBI declined to comment on Brennan’s message or on the classified intelligence assessment that CIA officials shared with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, setting off a political firestorm.

In the closed-door Senate briefing, CIA officials said it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was one of Russia’s goals, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Quote

“There is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” Brennan wrote in the message to the CIA workforce. “The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-blames-putins-personal-grudge-against-her-for-election-interference/2016/12/16/12f36250-c3be-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.da45a8234b26

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/fbi-russia-hacking-help-trump-232755

 

Can't wait for DocM to now claim that the CIA, FBI, NSA, DNI, various military intelligences etc etc etc are all secretly closeted democrats.

 

On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 9:07 AM, DocM said:

It's so bloody entertaining to see progressives flipping out; doing a 180° spin as regards election hacking within 2 months (Obama assured us it wasn't possible), and then after losing adopt the John Birch Society position as regards Russia  

Two completely different things. But keep spreading a false narrative.

 

2 months ago it was all about voter fraud and machines being hacked. Right now it's not about voting machines being hacked or voter fraud but about a foreign country influencing our election. Nobody (not Obama, not the various intelligence agencies, not Clinton) is claiming Russia hacked our voting machines and changed all of Clinton's votes to Trump...