veganfan21 wrote:
Jaw Breaker wrote:
veganfan21 wrote:
Jaw Breaker, JORR, and Pitt Mike:
Can you all explain why you think there would be no investigation into Russia's interference had Clinton won? Keep in mind the parameters of the eventual investigation had already began well before Trump won. In fact Clinton was the front-runner when the intelligence agencies informed the Obama administration about the interference one year ago, several months before Trump won. So factually what you guys are saying cannot be true, and I just want to see if you're basing this assertion on something other than facts.
Because in my opinion it is a desperate attempt to explain away an election result that many people didn't see coming and became apoplectic about once the unthinkable happened. People don't want to admit that Trump's win was equal parts Obama legacy, and having an atrocious opponent. It's easier to attribute it to Russian meddling. I have a hard time believing people hadn't already formed their opinion of Trump and Hillary long before any Russian involvement. MANY people surveyed after the election said they were either apathetic about whether Russia helped Trump, and in fact, MANY said they were actually glad if Russia did help him win. I don't believe that would have been the case had there been actual, real, tampering of votes or systems. Even Trump voters would have drawn that line in the sand. In this information age, people are not really concerned with the source of leaks of juicy gossip. Whether a domestic hacker or a Russian hacker had leaked the DNC's e-mails showing them trying to bury Bernie, it didn't matter to voters.
I've got to consider your stance to be partisan then. I've already said that the investigation you claim is "desperate attempt to explain away an election result" had unofficially began well before we had an "election result." The narrative you're crafting doesn't square with the history.
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Are you suggesting this investigation would be ongoing had Clinton won?
Inquiries regarding Russia started well before Trump was elected, so yes by definition the investigation would be ongoing because the basis had already been established.
Quote:
In early August, Brennan first alerts the White House to the Putin intelligence and later briefs Obama in the Oval Office. Brennan alerted senior White House officials to the Putin intelligence, making a call to deputy national security adviser Avril Haines, Deputy national security adviser and former deputy director of the CIA under Brennan, and pulling national security adviser Susan E. Rice aside after a meeting before briefing Obama along with Rice, Haines and McDonough. Rice orders the National Security Council to finalize a list of options to use against Moscow. McDonough was one of the first few officials to discuss details of the intelligence in the Oval Office.
Officials described the president’s reaction as grave. Obama “was deeply concerned and wanted as much information as fast as possible,” a former official said. “He wanted the entire intelligence community all over this.”
Russia experts had begun to see a troubling pattern of propaganda in which fictitious news stories, assumed to be generated by Moscow, proliferated across social-media platforms.
Officials at the State Department and FBI became alarmed by an unusual spike in requests from Russia for temporary visas for officials with technical skills seeking permission to enter the United States for short-term assignments at Russian facilities. At the FBI’s behest, the State Department delayed approving the visas until after the election.
Meanwhile, the FBI was tracking a flurry of hacking activity against U.S. political parties, think tanks and other targets. Russia had gained entry to DNC systems in the summer of 2015 and spring of 2016, but the breaches did not become public until they were disclosed in a June 2016 report by The Post.
Even after the late-July WikiLeaks dump, which came on the eve of the Democratic convention and led to the resignation of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) as the DNC’s chairwoman, U.S. intelligence officials continued to express uncertainty about who was behind the hacks or why they were carried out.
At a public security conference in Aspen, Colo., in late July, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. noted that Russia had a long history of meddling in American elections but that U.S. spy agencies were not ready to “make the call on attribution” for what was happening in 2016.
“We don’t know enough . . . to ascribe motivation,” Clapper said. “Was this just to stir up trouble or was this ultimately to try to influence an election?”
Brennan convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.
The unit functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community. Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted access to intelligence from all three participating agencies.
They worked exclusively for two groups of “customers,” officials said. The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials in government. The second was a team of operations specialists at the CIA, NSA and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more intelligence on Russia.
The secrecy extended into the White House.
Rice and White House homeland-security adviser Lisa Monaco convened meetings in the Situation Room to weigh the mounting evidence of Russian interference and generate options for how to respond. At first, only four senior security officials were allowed to attend:
John Brennan, CIA director.
James R. Clapper, Director of national intelligence and one of four senior administration officials to participate in meetings in of the Situation Room on how to retaliate against Russia. Clapper would eventually release the Obama administration's first statement concluding Russia interfered in the election. ,
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch
FBI Director James B. Comey. Aides ordinarily allowed entry as “plus-ones” were barred.
Gradually, the circle widened to include Vice President Biden and others. Agendas sent to Cabinet secretaries — including John F. Kerry at the State Department and Ashton B. Carter at the Pentagon — arrived in envelopes that subordinates were not supposed to open. Sometimes the agendas were withheld until participants had taken their seats in the Situation Room.
Throughout his presidency, Obama’s approach to national security challenges was deliberate and cautious. He came into office seeking to end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was loath to act without support from allies overseas and firm political footing at home. He was drawn only reluctantly into foreign crises, such as the civil war in Syria, that presented no clear exit for the United States.
Obama’s approach often seemed reducible to a single imperative: Don’t make things worse. As brazen as the Russian attacks on the election seemed, Obama and his top advisers feared that things could get far worse.
They were concerned that any pre-election response could provoke an escalation from Putin. Moscow’s meddling to that point was seen as deeply concerning but unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the election. Far more worrisome to the Obama team was the prospect of a cyber-assault on voting systems before and on Election Day.
They also worried that any action they took would be perceived as political interference in an already volatile campaign. By August, Trump was predicting that the election would be rigged. Obama officials feared providing fuel to such claims, playing into Russia’s efforts to discredit the outcome and potentially contaminating the expected Clinton triumph.
Before departing for an August vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, Obama instructed aides to pursue ways to deter Moscow and proceed along three main paths: Get a high-confidence assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies on Russia’s role and intent; shore up any vulnerabilities in state-run election systems; and seek bipartisan support from congressional leaders for a statement condemning Moscow and urging states to accept federal help.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... d65b80b8c0
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