FBI Director and CIA hold the same view that Russia hacked the 2016 elections

FBI Director Comey agrees with the CIA that Russia helped hack the U.S. elections to ensure a Trump win.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.adffc5652433

 

What will that mean in terms of "what happens next"?

 

I doubt little if anything will happen next.

 

I would suspect that Russia also had a hand in tipping the Brexit vote to sow chaos in the EU except for the likelihood that most elderly Brexiteers have no clue about social media.

 

Sadly--this is what nations do.
I've seen worse: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état

I'm a bit pro-Russian myself. The EU started this whole crap by pretty much forcing Ukraine to pick a side. Rummy wasn't all wet when he spoke about "Old Europe." Hull England is about as cored out as Birmingham AL USA is. They see all these goods on the roads--and their town just rusts into the background.

We no sooner won WWII, than the West propped up former Axis powers--and that alienated Russia and China both--who were our allies in that war. It may be time for realignment.

But I'd have Cohen as my Secretary of State--not an Exxon man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen

This all having been said--I never thought I'd see the day when the DNC would be complaining about Russia--usually it's the GOP that wants to start the Cold War all over again. My guess is that--in the 1960's, the Soviets propped up some DNC candidates, which really only helped stingy GOP-leaders in red-baiting pro-worker candidates. No GOP man would have given a crap about Carrier shutting down jobs then--of course, this was the era when Republicans went by names like Cabot and Lodge or whatever--blood-bloods to the last.

Russians may have wanted JFK over Nixon--thinking they could push him around. We saw how that went.

 

Why would Russia want Trump in office over Clinton?

Trump position on increasing US energy production will hurt Russia's natural gas and oil export prices.

 

Russia's or rather the USSR's post WWII antics wasn't exactly stellar as it subjuctaed countries that fell within the territories that it supposedly liberated froom the Nazi's. As for the recent issues in the Ukraine didn't they arise because the President decided to seek closer to ties to Rusia rather than the EU which resulted in riots and demonstrations in support of pro-EU policies which led to the downfall of the President and Government. And a Pro-EU government being formed. So it seems as if the Government was taking a position with which a portion of the populance disagreed, they protested (which is what we do in a democracy) and those protest result in a governmental change.

 

I thought there weren't supposed to be any political threads in "Miscellaneous" anymore.................

 

They'd benefit from a reactionary man-child president than one who was the secretary of state... They likely believe that Trump would weaken the US' place in NATO, things like that which would remove what they perceive as threats to Russia.

 

I think Comey helped the Repubs win with his very convenient leaks and stuff.

 

Not forever, just for awhile after the election to let things calm down a bit. I've closed about five of Dryson's political threads before this one, so I guess I was just feeling more forgiving than usual (or guilty about closing his other ones) because this was his first one that actually had a coherent premise for discussion. We'll test the waters with this one and see if people can remain respectful.

 

Then why not release the information earlier during the primary season and possible assist Sanders in getting the democratic nomination?

 

Wouldn't have made any difference

 

Just as with the question of possible voter fraud, I wish the gov't could address the issue in a non-partisan way. If Russia influenced the US election, the main issue is not whether it de-legitimates President elect Trump. Americans should join forces to get foreign influence out rather than trying to use the foreign influence for political advantage.

 

Federal intelligence officials and the FBI issued a non-specific warning about widespread Russian hacking of US government systems sometime back before April of 2016, which was when the DNC employed the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to protect their system. Unfortunately, the Russians had already been in the system since at least June of 2015.

Wikileaks released the DNC emails sourced from Russia during the Democratic National Convention in July after Sanders had lost the nomination.

Trump then asked the Russians to specifically hack Hillary Clinton's campaign on July 27th.


On October 7th, the Access Hollywood tapes of Donald Trump claiming to grope women came out publicly and within hours Wikileaks released Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's emails (hacked by Russia) in order to act as a spoiler or counter-attack to that information. The FBI only warned him about this two days after the information was already being released in the public and never contacted him again before or after.

Then finally there was the recent announcement mentioned in the OP which is made up of a consensus of all 17 US intelligence agencies including the CIA, NSA, and FBI that concludes that Russia was definitively involved for the purpose of assisting Donald Trump's election. They don't have the ability to hack into the actual voting machines in any numbers to be able to affect the vote that way, but they did influence the outcome through their propaganda efforts against the Clinton campaign.

Russia thinks of Trump as a "Useful Idiot", a foreign policy ignorant and easily manipulated propaganda tool to advance their agenda in the US and more broadly the West. They can use him to deny facts like when Trump said the Russians hadn't invaded Ukraine or when he denies their hacking even though Trump himself specifically asked the Russians to hack the Clinton campaign. They can use him to undermine our NATO allies by saying we would not defend them unless they were up to date on their debts to the Alliance. They can call in the debts he is suspected to owe the Russians (which we can't verify because he still won't produce his tax returns) to directly influence his decision. They can use his very Russian friendly cabinet to influence Trump's decision making process and promote their agenda in the Ukraine, Baltics, Syria, etc.

The Russians are already running massive exercises along their border with the Baltic states because they perceive a vulnerability there that they can exploit once Trump comes into office in a month.


Let’s begin with the secretary of state in waiting, Tillerson a man who has been in charge at the oil giant ExxonMobil since 2006. He has cultivated very strong business ties with the Russians business and governmental communities.

He is so highly regarded in the country that just three years ago, Tillerson was given the Order of Friendship by Putin himself in 2013, an honor for foreigners in Russia.

But he [General Flynn] also has very strong views of the Russian government being a potential partner with whom the U.S. can work with. He acknowledged to the Washington Post earlier this year that he’d given a paid-for speech at a party held by Russia’s state-run RT television network.

So far So far, Trump’s choices — including top jobs for a trio of veterans of Goldman Sachs, a firm he blasted at campaign rallies — haven’t reflected the populist impulses that fueled his appeal to some white working-class voters or his vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington of donors and other insiders.

Two of Goldman’s top stars Steven Mnuchin, was Trump’s pick for secretary of the Treasury, and Gary Cohn, picked to direct the National Economic Council, are high ranking members, of one of the biggest global companies in the world. As you might expect Goldman does a great many deals with the Russians and have Moscow based offices, which is perfectly legal.

http://www.newstalkflorida.com/featured/president-donald-trumps-russian/

 

What will Republican die hards make of how friendly this govt. will be with Russia?

 

Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham (along with Democrats Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed) tried to convince Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to establish a Senate select panel to look into Russian interference in the election, but McConnell refused. So now they want to create a more general Senate select committee on cybersecurity that would focus not just on Russia, but also China, Iran, North Korea, Nigeria, and others. McConnell again reiterated his resistance to the idea today but said he would review the request.

 

Oh interesting. If only they could wedge him on that so that he has to do something.

 

First, they didn't hack the elections. They probably hacked and released e-mails of candidates, their campaigns, and party affiliates. But to say the "hacked the elections" makes it sound like the vote-count isn't valid.

Second, I have yet to find a direct quote on-camera or to a reporter from FBI Director Comey that he said he agrees with CIA Director Brennan. The only thing I've seen is in the Washington Post article you linked to where Brennan claims Comey told him that during a meeting. The problem is, when Brennan came out a few days ago with saying the Russian's were behind the hacking, the FBI released a statement saying that weren't ready to confirm that. Brennan could just be trying to save face for jumping the gun.

I'm all for a full review into what may or may not have happened. But there were twenty or more left-leaning talking-heads on the tube this weekend saying we need to get the story fully released today. When pressed on the issue, they all said, "Oh no, we're not trying to change the Electoral College vote, and we don't think we could if we wanted to." So, why the big rush to get it all out there? This is a serious allegation and thus requires deliberate, thoughtful investigation. This will probably take weeks, if not months, to thoroughly sort out. And let's not forget that a lot of the "how do we know" stuff is probably classified and shouldn't be released to the public.

 

The Washington Post's claims were independently confirmed by NBC News and the Associated Press (and possibly others).

Besides, why are we prioritizing Comey's individual endorsement over that of CIA director Brennan AND the Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, speaking on behalf of the entire 17-agency national intelligence apparatus? Comey's neutrality is suspect to say the least after his antics with the deliberately vague and misleading "We have a major announcement regarding the emails" (leaving out that it was nothing to do with Secretary Clinton) 12-days before the election, which was shown to have a major influence among final week voters, possibly costing her the election.



Comey also failed to adequately respond to the threat posed by Russian hackers, either deliberately or through incompetence:

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.

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.”
http://uproxx.com/news/john-podesta-calls-out-fbi-russia-hack/

The only reason his agreement is important here is because it's noteworthy that someone who has been shown to use questionable judgment and possibly even exhibit bias in favor of Trump and/or against Clinton agrees with the assessment of the other agencies. It's a cherry on top, so to speak, but not absolutely necessary.

As for why the "rush" to get this information out, I would say that it hasn't been a rush at all, since they waited a long time for confirmation and so as not to influence the election (something Comey didn't bother with when making his announcement), but the reason is that President Obama only has a month left in office and president-elect Trump obviously has no desire to dig into this situation since he not only is fully aware of the Russian hacking and lying about it, he directly encouraged it to happen. Obviously he's not going to do anything about it once he's in office selling out our allies to his Russian friends.