“Since I left the government, though, as a private citizen, it’s what I would call my informed opinion that, given the massive effort the Russians made, and the number of citizens that they touched, and the variety and the multidimensional aspects of what they did to influence opinion and affect the election, and given the fact that it turned on less than 80,000 votes in three states, to me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that they didn’t affect the election, and it’s my belief they actually turned it.”
The first part of Clapper’s error is that there is no evidence whatsoever that any Russian effort was a factor swaying 80,000 votes in three states from Billary, Inc. to Trump, merely because that was the popular vote difference in the three states Clapper is referring to. Correlation is not and does not prove causation. But worse is his estimation of the worth of the Russian effort, against those 80,000 votes, or any others.
Clapper spews the the nonsense that in spite of how much more massive, comparatively, was the efforts of both U.S. major parties, both of the major presidential campaigns, all the U.S. politicians campaigning on their own and in those efforts commenting as well on the two top presidential candidates, as well as all the in-kind campaign opinion making and shaping by all the formal U.S. media venues, as well as the total “social media” contributions by all those forces, and millions of private U.S. citizens, collectively, that somehow Russian’s small effort by comparison was enough to call the election?
It is no wonder with guys like Clapper in charge the U.S. never knew Putin was set to invade the Crimea; or possibly worse that under Obama they knew and, for Obama, Clapper kept his mouth shut publicly, so as to not screw up the pending deal with the Mullahs of Tehran, for Obama’s legacy, because that was more important?
It is good for the U.S. that people like Clapper no longer have their roles in the U.S. government. It is clear that many, including Clapper, Comey, Brennan, McCabe and Mueller have managed over the years to rise to their level of incompetence (the Peter Principle).
If, If there was any ‘influence’ on the election, it was that though the leaked emails the nation was able to see how deceitful and criminal the Democratic leadership really is. It likely wasn't the Russians who released those emails, but I do believe that those emails did effect the election - and I could not be happier. Finally, the unethical scum that were/are the Clintons and the Obama administration have been exposed - irrefutably. That is justice, not subversion. Clapper should be in leg irons.