CIA Concludes that Russia Influenced Election to Help Elect Trump

[mikey3000]

The only thing Russia did was show Americans how the DNC tried to cheat. Ya'll should be sending Putin flowers.

 

[TickTockMan]

The only thing Russia did was show Americans how the DNC tried to cheat. Ya'll should be sending Putin flowers.

I doubt they even did that. It was probably just a pissed off DNC staffer.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

You realize that it doesn't matter if she was actually as crooked as people make her out to be? That doesn't make Russia interfering with the US Election any better. Whether it was done to Democrats or Republicans. People who want to keep talking about it as if it has to do with party lines are not making themselves look very bright when you really think that the reason people have a problem with a foreign Government involving themselves in an Election has to do with it being done to a Democrat.

 

[rareboy]

And of course...Trump 'knows things' and will reveal all on Tuesday or Wednesday......

Doesn't this all seem depressingly familiar?

 

[Kulindahr]

Here's a question I find talking heads avoiding, and it's the question that ought to be asked:

Did the Russian interference have enough effect to change how the election went?

That's the critical question: if they didn't, then slapping their hand and moving on is appropriate. If they did... we have a serious situation that has to be protected against in the future.

 

[Kabluey]

Here's a question I find talking heads avoiding, and it's the question that ought to be asked:

Did the Russian interference have enough effect to change how the election went?

That's the critical question: if they didn't, then slapping their hand and moving on is appropriate. If they did... we have a serious situation that has to be protected against in the future.

There's something of a race against time if any audit is to be conducted.
While the possibility exists that Russia may have worked to favour Trump, Trump's government will never support it.

All this does is empower a despot like Putin.

 

[Kulindahr]

There's something of a race against time if any audit is to be conducted.
While the possibility exists that Russia may have worked to favour Trump, Trump's government will never support it.

All this does is empower a despot like Putin.

The situation reminds me somewhat of when the Gracchi tried to reform the Roman Senate.

 

[Kensei]

Just checking in here, not a big poster. I was just curious, what evidence do we have that it was Russia that was the source for Wikileaks? So far it was just the CIA saying so. But they got caught in lies before, so I have a hard time trusting them. Same thing with people who lie to me once, it's hard to recover that trust.

Also, Julian Assange said it wasn't Russia.

Do we have any evidence yet?

 

[opinterph]

Julian Assange said it wasn't Russia.

Has Mr. Assange ever lied?

 

[mikey3000]

Never!

 

[Kulindahr]

ABC news reported this evening that the head of all U.S. intelligence told Obama that they are 100% certain Russia did the hacking.

 

[mikey3000]

Just checking in here, not a big poster. I was just curious, what evidence do we have that it was Russia that was the source for Wikileaks? So far it was just the CIA saying so. But they got caught in lies before, so I have a hard time trusting them. Same thing with people who lie to me once, it's hard to recover that trust.

Also, Julian Assange said it wasn't Russia.

Do we have any evidence yet?

Well, apparently the head of all US intelligence said it was Russia, so it must be true then.

 

[opinterph]

… so it must be true then.

 

[opinterph]

The situation reminds me somewhat of when the Gracchi tried to reform the Roman Senate.

Tiberius and Gaius [Wiki]​

 

[hotatlboi]

I certainly hope we've moved beyond assassination as a way to resolve our political differences.

 

[Alnitak]

Here's a question I find talking heads avoiding, and it's the question that ought to be asked:

Did the Russian interference have enough effect to change how the election went?

That's the critical question: if they didn't, then slapping their hand and moving on is appropriate. If they did... we have a serious situation that has to be protected against in the future.

The margin was 80000 votes in three states. That's small enough to be caused by any single factor. Although, that may include Hillary not campaigning enough in those three.

 

[Alnitak]

I certainly hope we've moved beyond assassination as a way to resolve our political differences.

Given that there hasn't been one in 50 years, and four in the preceding century, it may be that presidents are getting harder to grease.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, apparently the head of all US intelligence said it was Russia, so it must be true then.

At least three agencies -- CIA, FBI, HS -- firmly say the Russians did hacking to interfere with the elections. The good news in it is that the director said "Russian hacking 'did not change any vote tallies.'"

THe interference goes beyond getting into DNC files:

"Nearly half of the states in the U.S. have recently had their voter registration systems targeted by foreign hackers, and four of those systems have successfully been breached, sources tell ABC News.

That amount of targeting and actual infiltration into state election-related systems is significantly larger than the U.S. government has been willing to acknowledge. " source

Nothing in the systems was changed, so some officials believe the goal was to gather information on citizens, perhaps as a step toward identity theft, not influencing the election.


Just for perspective, here's a timeline of the hacking. It's worth noting that the first public warning did not come from a government agency but from a cyber-security firm. I find the July 24 revelation perhaps the most important, as it shows the astounding level of corruption of the DNC and also triggered the FBI investigation -- apparently the first time the government got involved.

One thing missing from that timeline is a presentation that was made on ABC News by a representative of either the FBI or CIA, who described how they identified two specific hackers know to be Russian (though she refused to answer the question about just how many hackers they thought were involved).

 

[Kulindahr]

The margin was 80000 votes in three states. That's small enough to be caused by any single factor. Although, that may include Hillary not campaigning enough in those three.

So far there hasn't been any indication that votes were hacked; in fact Homeland Security noted that hacking the vote in a U.S. election would be an essentially insurmountable challenge due to the decentralized and "clumsy" methods used to tally votes.

That doesn't though, rule out use of any back doors on electronic voting machines.

As for those three states, local campaign workers complained more than once that the DNC was actively blocking their attempts to apply methods known to be effective on the local level, saying that the DNC assured them "We know what we're doing".

 

[Kulindahr]

Given that there hasn't been one in 50 years, and four in the preceding century, it may be that presidents are getting harder to grease.

Which only means that at some point someone is going to use a less specific method than firearms... like crashing planes into buildings.