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Tag: Russian Hacking
President Elect Trump concedes Russians were likely behind hacking
During his first Press Conference, and in a major break with his statements to date, President Elect Donald Trump finally acknowledged that Russia was probably behind the hacks that exposed Democratic National Committee e-mails unfavorable to Hillary Clinton during the Presidential election. Until now, the President Elect has resisted the widely accepted assertion that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was responsible for the security breach.
However, the President Elect refused to accept the notion that the e-mail hacks were perpetrated to help him win the election, or more accurately, in order to help defeat Hillary Clinton, whom Vladimir Putin reviles. To lend support to his claim, Trump insisted that the hackers also attacked the RNC, but their superior cyber security defenses prevented Republican e-mails from falling into unfriendly hands. It’s unclear where the President Elect got that information, which appears to contradict the consensus of the intelligence community on the matter.
President Elect Trump also rejected as “phony” reports that Russian operatives have collected information that could prove compromising to him. The story was called a “witch hunt” by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Buzz Feed, a hugely popular social media service, posted a story with unconfirmed reports that the alleged information collected by the Russian operatives was quite lurid in nature. President Elect Trump replied that this kind of accusation was something that would have happened in Nazi Germany, which in turn sparked criticism by those who felt the comparison trivialized the countless horrors of the Nazi regime.
It’s clear that Donald Trump started his first press conference with a bang. The affair was long on drama, conflict, and showmanship, but short on substance. It’s worrisome to note that this is a well established trend from the volatile campaign months of 2016, which does not seem to be reversing as the President Elect moves closer to assuming office.
Learn more about President Elect’s Russian hacking statements (CNN)
Photo: By Michael Vadon – Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
Watch President Obama’s last press conference
Watch President Obama field questions from reporters on issues of the day, including the war in Syria, the Russian e-mail Hacking scandal investigation (which dominated the press conference) and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, during his last press conference of his final term in office. President Obama is an excellent speaker and a quick thinker on his feet, so dealing with the press in his confident, no nonsense manner has always been his strong suit.
President Obama had stern words for Putin’s Russia. Though he didn’t directly name Vladimir Putin in the cyber attacks, he strongly implied that the Russian leader had a hand in the hacking leading to the November 18th election upset, saying that the highest levels of Russian government were involved. He also said that he confronted Putin at the Group 20 Summit in China, and told him to “knock it off.”
CNN / Youtube
Vladimir Putin’s e-mail hacks: have the Democrats become soft?
Based on evidence from the CIA and other important intelligence agencies, the Russians interfered with the 2016 Presidential Election, by way of an extensive e-mail hacking scheme. It’s important to note that these intelligence services are the most important and accurate sources of information for critical decision making in the U.S. government, with extensive networks of experts gathering and analyzing data.
Clearly the Russians wanted to make sure Donald Trump was elected, and Hillary Clinton was not. Intelligence experts believe two Kremlin-affiliated groups, operating independently, were responsible for the hacks, one from Russian Military Intelligence, and the other from the FSB Spy Agency. And Vladimir Putin appears to have been involved with the schemes.
The Russian leader has great enmity for Hillary Clinton, going back over four years. He believes she was responsible for a wave of protests in 2011 and 2012, when Putin ran for a third Presidential term. He believes that the protesters were paid by Clinton, who was still Secretary of State in President Obama’s administration, in an attempt to meddle with the Russian election. So the 2016 election hacks were essentially payback for Clinton, from Putin’s point of view. Putin was basically taking revenge.
In contrast, Putin’s view of Trump is much more favorable. He’s viewed as a fresh face, sans baggage, and a deal-maker with whom he can negotiate, not as an ideological hard-liner, and personal enemy, like Clinton. And Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson (President and CEO of Exxon Mobil) sits well with Putin, who has negotiated many favorable deals with Tillerson for the drilling of fossil fuels.
Tillerson is quite close to Putin, and the Russian government even awarded him the country’s Friendship Decoration in 2012. Clearly the Trump administration is poised to do a lot of business with Russia in the energy markets over the next four or more years. And so, in addition to a great deal of personal bad blood between Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, Russia has some pretty clear economic interests at stake, making it logical for the Russian government to prefer a Trump victory in the U.S. Presidential election.
So at this point we must ask, what’s wrong with the U.S., what’s wrong with American Citizens, and what on earth is wrong with the Democratic Party? We have clear evidence, from top intelligence services, particularly the CIA, that Vladimir Putin’s Russia hacked the U.S., and conspired to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump, who in fact ended up the actual winner.
In other words, a foreign power put its thumb on the scale of our election process, and was rewarded with exactly what it wanted! This is obviously an outrage, but nonetheless, many stand by passively. Where’s the outcry? Where’s the fiery concern for democracy and the sacred inviolability of the vote? Americans, and America’s Democrats in particular, need to stand up and be counted. They simply can’t allow this to pass.
For 70 years the preeminent power in the world has been the United States. Is that now changing? Was our 2016 election actually Russia’s great moment of triumph, its ascendancy to influence on the world’s stage, following it’s time in the doldrums of power after the collapse of the old Soviet Union? Has Russia finally outplayed the United States?
So what should we do in response to the hacking scandal? Surely something. Not simply—-nothing. Should we delay the Electoral College vote by a week or more, to help figure this mess out? Maybe. Should we declare the election results null and void, due to foreign interference, and run a new election? Probably. Are the American People and the Democratic Party so soft, so disinterested and sheep-like, that they…that WE… simply let this outrage pass? Shouldn’t we, for the love of our country, freedom and democracy, take this terrible revelation as a chance, and a reason, to take decisive action, and start over again?
Photo: By DonkeyHotey – Vladimir Putin carrying his buddy Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
