Donald Trump takes aim at US intelligence community on Russia

[Judy]

Donald Trump takes aim at US intelligence community on Russia


By Stephen Collinson and Elise Labott, CNN
Updated 6:52 AM ET, Sun December 11, 2016

Trump slams CIA over Russia

(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump's transition team slammed the CIA Friday, following reports the agency has concluded that Russia intervened in the election to help him win.

In a stunning response to widening claims of a Russian espionage operation targeting the presidential race, Trump's camp risked an early feud with the Intelligence community on which he will rely for top secret assessments of the greatest threats facing the United States.

"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the transition said in a terse, unsigned statement.

"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 sharp pushback to revelations in The Washington Post, which followed an earlier CNN report on alleged Russian interference in the election, represented a startling rebuke from an incoming White House to the CIA.

The transition team's reference to the agency's most humiliating recent intelligence misfire — over its conclusion that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — threatens to cast an early cloud over relations between the Trump White House and the CIA, whose assessments he'll need to make monumental decisions.

The top leadership of the agency that presided over the Iraq failure during the Bush administration has long since been replaced. But the comments from Trump's camp will cause concern in the Intelligence community about the incoming President's attitude to America's spy agencies. CNN reported this week that Trump is getting intelligence briefings only once a week. Several previous presidents preparing for the inauguration had a more intense briefing schedule.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation into Russia's hacking told CNN last week that the US intelligence community is increasingly confident that Russian meddling in the US election was intended to steer the election toward Trump, rather than simply to undermine or in other ways disrupt the political process.

On Friday, the Post cited US officials as saying that intelligence agencies have identified individuals connected to the Russian government who gave Wikileaks thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta.

Senate Democrats responded to the news Friday and Saturday by calling on the Intelligence community to turn over to Congress as much relevant information on the subject of Russian hacking to Congress.

"That any country could be meddling in our elections should shake both political parties to their core," incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. "Senate Democrats will join with our Republican colleagues next year to demand a congressional investigation and hearings to get to the bottom of this."

Trump has repeatedly said there is no evidence to suggest that President Vladimir Putin's Russia, with which he has vowed to improve relations, played a nefarious role in the US election.

"I don't believe it. I don't believe they interfered," Trump said in an interview for the latest issue of Time magazine, adding that he thought intelligence community accusations about Russian interventions in the election were politically motivated.
Trump has also been highly sensitive to any suggestion that he did not win the election fair and square, including claiming that he is only trailing Clinton in the popular vote because of a huge trove of illegal votes -- a claim for which he has provided no evidence.

His surrogates including Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer underscored the point Saturday that there's little evidence that Russian hacking would have affected the overall outcome of the election.

"What proof does anyone have that they effected the outcome because I've heard zero," he said in a heated conversation with CNN's Michael Smerconsih. "Show me what facts have actually shown that anything undermined that election."
Earlier Friday, the White House said that President Barack Obama had ordered a full review into hacking aimed at influencing US elections going back to 2008.

Russia has demanded evidence of its alleged involvement in the election and denied any wrongdoing.

CNN Eugene Scott, Manu Raju and Jim Sciutto contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/politi...ing/index.html

[Judy]

Russia has demanded evidence of its alleged involvement in the election and denied any wrongdoing.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable request.

I think this is another FAKE NEWS story. WikiLeaks says it didn't come from the Russians. I don't think the WikiLeaks on the DNC came from Russia either. But what if it did? Russians or any other people in any other country have the right to seek information, get it, and publish it. Russia is under sanctions by the Obama administration causing enormous harm to their country and people. They have the sovereign right to take actions and do things to improve their situation same as we and any other country has. We're not part of this Global Cabal manipulating the world. At least, we aren't supposed to be.

And what kind of CIA do we have that wants to involve itself in political campaigns and elections and discuss their intelligence activities publicly? Activities that at the end of the day, apparently, they either don't really have or can't release if they do?

I admire the hell out of Trump for standing up to the CIA. What the CIA and all these other stupid globalist hacks don't get, is Americans want a new improved relationship with Russia. We don't buy this bunk about Russians being our enemy. They aren't our enemy, they never have been. They have never attacked our country, they didn't bomb the World Trade Center, they didn't hit our Pentagon, they didn't attack Pearl Harbor, they don't have drug-cartel sponsored illegal aliens invading our nation stealing our jobs, opportunities and resources, they aren't stealing our factories and good jobs, they aren't manipulating their currency to hurt our employers, they aren't spreading disease, they don't demand billions in cash delivered in the dark of night on pallets, they don't ask US for anything except normal relations. They haven't and aren't doing anything to hurt the US, the American People, or US interests.

So someone needs to ask, WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Oh wait, someone did. His name is Donald J. Trump, and he'll be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States on January 20th, and soon after our Period of Ironies and Opposites will be brought to an end.

I mean, since when did THE TRUTH, no matter how we came by it, become an "attack on American Democracy"? I guess since the CROOKS AND LIARS lost an election they thought they had already bought.

In closing, all I can say, is thank God our Founders gave US a Republic instead of a Democracy.

[posylady]

All you hear on the news these days is hearsay. CNN reported this ...Fox reported that... on all the main stream media with no facts or actual proof almost always person don't want to be identified that spreads the gossip. Sound like a bunch of parrots. Russia accused Sorro's and the Clinton's of trying to sway their election a few years back. The wikileak e-mails this past year shows how deeply involved our own government is involved in other countries elections and placement of officials. Even in some cases encouraging overthrows of their current government. The US can't expect to be involved in things that sway other countries government take overs or elections around the world without it coming back to them. Our government created the NSA to snoop on other countries and opened up this can of worms. As far as I am concerned Juliean Assage stated that the documents came from the USA and not Russia I tend to believe him and not this gossip.

[Judy]

I'm with you, posylady.

[nntrixie]

Don't kid yourself, the 'heads of the CIA' that lied us into the longest war in our history, which led to the eruption of a firestorm in the ME, killed untold numbers of innocent people, and thousands of American military - are right where they have always been. They are still
manipulating our foreign involvement, the globalist agenda.

The nameplates on the doors may be different but those pulling the strings are the same ones.

PE Trump's victory, our stepping up to the plate, has given rise to movements around the world. So think about it, if Russia and the US became strong allies, they could bring peace to that part of the world.
That's something the globalist do not want. They want a constant strife and the ME is the place they can always be able to go and stir up a crisis/war when they need it.

[Judy]

Thank you, nntriixie. If we had a 5 star rating system for posts, I'd give that one 6 Stars. The CIA can not be trusted at this point. I'm not certain it ever could be. Trump seems to get that because he doesn't even waste his time with their briefings. He said he doesn't have time to spend listening to the same stuff on Tuesday, he heard on Monday. That's why he's cut his briefings to 1 briefing a week. I guess that insulted them, so now they come up with the Russian hacking crap that didn't work during the campaign, to try to use it against Tillerson's nomination. If Trump really wants Tillerson, then everyone trying to use Russia to stop that nomination, will soon realize they can not out-maneuver Donald Trump's mission for peace in the world including much better relations with this crucial ally in war and peace.

Russia is the Bear. For a reason. They are not a Lion. They are not a Tiger. They are not a Hyena. They are the Bear. Territorial, protective, strong, and solitary. They protect their own interests and mind their own business. The Russian people are a remarkable people. It's unfortunate, a tragedy really, that most Americans know nothing about them, our greatest ally in WWII and the reason half of our country doesn't speak Japanese and the other half German. But for Russia, we would not have won WWII.

[Judy]

Intelligence Agencies Distressed by Trump's Rejection of Findings on Russia

Dec 11 2016, 7:10 pm ET
by Robert Windrem and Alex Johnson

President-elect Donald Trump's dismissal of U.S. intelligence findings that Russia tried to sway the presidential election is a distressing slap in the face to the intelligence community, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Sunday.

Trump on Sunday repeated his rejection of the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia actively worked to help him win the election, calling the idea "ridiculous" in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

The comment, like others that Trump made during the campaign, "is contrary to all that is sacred to national security professionals who work day and night to protect this country," a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.

The official called it "concerning" that the president-elect has chosen to "impugn the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials" by disputing professional intelligence judgments as false or politically partisan.

A congressional official with knowledge of the issue told NBC News on Saturday that the CIA has concluded that Russia mounted a covert intelligence operation to help Trump win the election.

Another source briefed on the intelligence told NBC News that the U.S. government has identified specific Russian actors it believes were involved in computer systems hacks — based on intercepted communications, human tips and computer forensics.

Trump dismissed such reports in a statement Friday that derided the CIA as "the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

A former senior intelligence official also noted Trump's assertion Sunday on Fox News that he doesn't always take the Presidential Daily Briefing — the top-secret briefing on national security developments — because "I'm, like, a smart person."

"It is curious that someone who refuses to take intelligence briefings has decided that he doesn't agree with the analysis contained in them," the former official said.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat the House Intelligence Committee, also blasted Trump, saying the integrity of the electoral process is called into question "when President-elect Trump and his transition team minimize or dismiss the intelligence assessments themselves."

"Even more damaging are comments that impugn the tens of thousands of Americans who are at work every day of the year, many in great physical danger, to protect us and to provide our national leadership — regardless of political party — with the best information possible," Schiff said Saturday.

"Perhaps, once he has taken office, Mr. Trump will go to the CIA and look at the rows of memorial stars in the lobby — each representing a fallen officer — and reflect on his disparagement of the intelligence community's work," he said.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...russia-n694686

[Judy]

Does this all not seem strange to you all? Why is the CIA involved in this to begin with? The CIA is not supposed to be involved with domestic political matters. They're supposed to be focused on chasing terrorists and military threats to the United States.

In my personal opinion if all they've got to concern themselves with is a hack of some sort into the DNC emails and the emails ending up with Wikileaks then released to the American People and the World disclosing some TRUTH about certain matters, then they have far too much time on their hands.

This will not go unnoticed by Americans.

For those who don't know or who have forgotten, the CIA gave us Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. They trained them and armed them to fight Russia when they were the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, a CIA boon-doggle that went terribly wrong. The CIA also gave us ISIS. They trained them, armed them and gave them hundreds of millions of dollars when they were backing the Syrian Rebels, another CIA boon-doggle that went terribly wrong. The CIA as Trump rightly points out claimed they had "credible intelligence" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the basis for the invasion of Iraq. Another CIA boon-doggle that went terribly wrong.

I think the CIA needs to examine its own hacks, fix it's own gross errors, and stay out of American politics. If the largest threat looming on our horizon is that Russia may prefer Trump over Clinton, as did the majority of Americans in 30 of our 50 states, then the CIA budget needs a big giant haircut.

[Judy]

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

December 9, 2016

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 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.
Did Russia interfere with the 2016 election? This GOP senator thinks so
Play Video1:56
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he wants to investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. election, amongst claims that Donald Trump's rhetoric on Russia and Vladimir Putin is too soft. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

The CIA presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

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.”

The White House and CIA officials declined to comment.

On Friday, the White House said President Obama had ordered a “full review” of Russian hacking during the election campaign, as pressure from Congress has grown for greater public understanding of exactly what Moscow did to influence the electoral process.

“We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned,” Obama’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said.

During her remarks, Monaco didn’t address the latest CIA assessment, which hasn’t been previously disclosed.

Seven Democratic senators last week asked Obama to declassify details about the intrusions and why officials believe that the Kremlin was behind the operation. Officials said Friday that the senators specifically were asking the White House to release portions of the CIA’s presentation.

This week, top Democratic lawmakers in the House also sent a letter to Obama, asking for briefings on Russian interference in the election.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been cautious for months in characterizing Russia’s motivations, reflecting the United States’ long-standing struggle to collect reliable intelligence on President Vladi*mir Putin and those closest to him.

In previous assessments, the CIA and other intelligence agencies told the White House and congressional leaders that they believed Moscow’s aim was to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system. The assessments stopped short of saying the goal was to help elect Trump.

On Oct. 7, the intelligence community officially accused Moscow of seeking to interfere in the election through the hacking of “political organizations.” Though the statement never specified which party, it was clear that officials were referring to cyber-intrusions into the computers of the DNC and other Democratic groups and individuals.

Some key Republican lawmakers have continued to question the quality of evidence supporting Russian involvement.

“I’ll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there’s clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence — even now,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. “There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that’s it.”

Though Russia has long conducted cyberspying on U.S. agencies, companies and organizations, this presidential campaign marks the first time Moscow has attempted through cyber-means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election, the officials said.

The reluctance of the Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before Election Day upset Democrats on the Hill as well as members of the Clinton campaign.

Within the administration, top officials from different agencies sparred over whether and how to respond. White House officials were concerned that covert retaliatory measures might risk an escalation in which Russia, with sophisticated cyber-capabilities, might have less to lose than the United States, with its vast and vulnerable digital infrastructure.

The White House’s reluctance to take that risk left Washington weighing more-limited measures, including the “naming and shaming” approach of publicly blaming Moscow.

By mid-September, White House officials had decided it was time to take that step, but they worried that doing so unilaterally and without bipartisan congressional backing just weeks before the election would make Obama vulnerable to charges that he was using intelligence for political purposes.

Instead, officials devised a plan to seek bipartisan support from top lawmakers and set up a secret meeting with the Gang of 12 — a group that includes House and Senate leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking members of both chambers’ committees on intelligence and homeland security.

Obama dispatched Monaco, FBI Director James B. Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to make the pitch for a “show of solidarity and bipartisan unity” against Russian interference in the election, according to a senior administration official.

Specifically, the White House wanted congressional leaders to sign off on a bipartisan statement urging state and local officials to take federal help in protecting their voting-registration and balloting machines from Russian cyber-intrusions.

Though U.S. intelligence agencies were skeptical that hackers would be able to manipulate the election results in a systematic way, the White House feared that Russia would attempt to do so, sowing doubt about the fundamental mechanisms of democracy and potentially forcing a more dangerous confrontation between Washington and Moscow.

In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.

And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”

The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

Some of the Republicans in the briefing also seemed opposed to the idea of going public with such explosive allegations in the final stages of an election, a move that they argued would only rattle public confidence and play into Moscow’s hands.

McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment. After the election, Trump chose McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as his nominee for transportation secretary.

Some Clinton supporters saw the White House’s reluctance to act without bipartisan support as further evidence of an excessive caution in facing adversaries.

“The lack of an administration response on the Russian hacking cannot be attributed to Congress,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was at the September meeting. “The administration has all the tools it needs to respond. They have the ability to impose sanctions. They have the ability to take clandestine means. The administration has decided not to utilize them in a way that would deter the Russians, and I think that’s a problem.”

Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.ad27e974abbc

__________________________

Can someone tell me why a "Secret CIA Assessment ...." is in the newspapers and on the TV? Doesn't sound very "secret" to me. Sounds like a job to me.

SHAME ON YOU CIA!! You're supposed to keep your secrets, secret.

[Jean]

By Susan Jones | December 15, 2016 | 8:25 AM EST


(CNSNews.com) - An attempt by Congress to find out more about Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election hit a brick wall last night, when U.S. intelligence agencies refused a request to brief the House intelligence committee today (Thursday) on the cyber-attacks.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the committee chair, was furious: "It is unacceptable that the Intelligence Community directors would not fulfill the House Intelligence Committee’s request to be briefed tomorrow on the cyber-attacks that occurred during the presidential campaign," Nunes said in a statement.

"The legislative branch is constitutionally vested with oversight responsibility of executive branch agencies, which are obligated to comply with our requests," Nunes said. "The Committee is vigorously looking into reports of cyber-attacks during the election campaign, and in particular we want to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us.

"The Committee is deeply concerned that intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes," said Nunes. "The Committee will continue its efforts and will insist that we receive all the necessary cooperation from the relevant leaders of the Intelligence Community.”

In a statement of its own, the U.S. intelligence community -- comprised of 17 different agencies -- noted that "senior administration officials" have regularly briefed members of Congress and their staff, in both classified and unclassified settings.

It said it would not make any comment until a review ordered by President Obama is complete.

Last week, President Obama ordered a full review of foreign efforts to influence presidential elections, dating back to 2008. Obama expects the review to be complete before he leaves office.

"Once the review is complete in the coming weeks, the Intelligence Community stands ready to brief Congress--and will make those findings available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods. We will not offer any comment until the review is complete," the statement said.

Although the Obama administration alerted Americans to Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election in October, a full month before the election, the hacking of Democrats' emails didn't become a big deal until Donald Trump's surprise victory on Nov. 8.

In the weeks since then, news reports have said not only did the Russians hack and leak Democrats' emails, but they did so to help Donald Trump win.

On Thursday, NBC News reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin "became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election."

The Obama White House on Wednesday went so far as to suggest that Republican Donald Trump had inside information about Russian hacking well before the Nov. 8 election.

"There is ample evidence that was known long before the election, and in most cases long before October, about the Trump campaign and Russia -- everything from the Republican nominee himself calling on Russia to hack his opponent," Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday.

"It might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he was -- he had available to him, that Russia was involved. And their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent's campaign. That's why he was encouraging them to keep doing it."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...mittee-russian