Posted on 07/04/2018 1:10:50 AM PDT by gattaca
The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that found Russia interfered in the 2016 election in an effort to help President Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton is "a sound intelligence product." The newly released, unclassified 7-page report -- whose conclusions the Republican-led committee previewed in May -- put to rest some questions that had arisen about the integrity of the assessment and the political agenda of the agencies that authored it.
"The Committee has spent the last 16 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft and analytic work underpinning the Intelligence Community Assessment and sees no reason to dispute the conclusions," said Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The Committee continues its investigation and I am hopeful that this installment of the Committee's work will soon be followed by additional summaries providing the American people with clarity around Russia's activities regarding U.S. elections."
In its report, the committee said it had conducted numerous interviews with senior intelligence officials and reviewed the analytic procedures that informed the ICA, which was commissioned by former President Barack Obama in late 2016. The committee's report stated unequivocally that it concurred with the ICA's assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the election, and that he and the Russian government had developed "a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
It also said that further details have come to light that "bolster" the ICA's findings about the extent of Russia's efforts to undermine the U.S.-led liberal international order and hinted at new findings by the committee that have "exposed a far more extensive Russian effort to manipulate social media outlets to sow discord."
Unlike Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee -- whose final report indicated that the ICA's findings on Putin's strategic intentions "did not employ proper analytic tradecraft" and said it had identified "significant…failings that undermine confidence in the ICA judgments" -- the Senate report made no mention of shortcomings. Instead, it said, "the analytical disagreement was reasonable, transparent, and openly debated among the agencies and analysts, with analysts, managers, and agency heads on both sides of the confidence level articulately justifying their positions."
Of the three agencies that contributed to the ICA, the CIA and FBI offered assessments on Putin's objectives with "high confidence," while the NSA's assessment was issued with "moderate confidence."
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee said at the time of the majority's report's release that they had found no fault with any of the tradecraft underlying the ICA.
The Senate Intelligence Committee did fault the ICA on two fronts. It said the assessment failed to provide an updated account of the capabilities of RT, the Russian state-funded television network. And, it said, the historical context provided about Russian interference in U.S. domestic politics was "perfunctory," and could have presented a "more relevant historical context."
Mr. Trump has been a frequent critic of the work of the intelligence community in general and of some of the ICA's core findings in particular. Last week, Trump tweeted, "Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election! Where is the DNC Server, and why didn't Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn't Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!"
The Senate's report said none of the analysts contributing to it provided any indication their findings resulted from political or other demands, saying it "heard consistently that analysts were under no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions."
"All analysts expressed that they were free to debate, object to content, and assess confidence levels, as is normal and proper for the analytic process," the committee wrote.
It also noted that the so-called Steele dossier, which the president and some Republican critics say wrongly prompted or informed an investigation into Trump's campaign, "did not in any way inform the analysis in the ICA ... because it was unverified information."
Tuesday's report was one of several the committee will issue as part of its investigation. Reports on the role of social media and on the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia are expected to be completed in the coming months.
"While our investigation remains ongoing, we have to learn from 2016 and do more to protect ourselves from attacks in 2018 and beyond," said Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia.
The truth is yes Russia tried to meddle in the U.S. election.
The lie is that they did so with intent to bolster Trump, who unlike the Clintons had never gotten any benefits from nor given any benefits to Russia.
The truth is the Russian intent was to advance any pre-existent discord in the American electorate.
The truth is that both major parties were advancing on the themes that rode as well on that discord, and collectively through all sources and venues put massively more into their efforts than the tiny efforts of Russia.
Thr truth is that whatever the Russian effortts were, they were not a factor in deciding the election.
BINGO! Exactly, Wuli. Thank you and well put!
Got it./sarc
Did the Russians change the votes in the voting machines?
Which candidate had nearly every celebrity (many foreign), the media, academia and social media on their side? That was the real collusion.
I am not sure how the members voted but I believe we could make a good guess. And I believe the ex officios at least influenced the members.
Any help Russia gave Trump is greatly appreciated.
These idiots spent 16 momths examing a report cobbled together by Brennan and Clapper and pushed through 17 agencies for “ coordination” which some did with caveats
Been through this process
Many analyst meetings to gi back and forth to change “ may” to “ might” and “ possibly” to “ not improbable” - then it goes to the boss and he changes it back and signs off
Heavy pressure among the top dawgs to reach the conclusion of one agenda and to appear to endorse it
A scrub should have taken 10 days max
“The truth is yes Russia tried to meddle in the U.S. election.”
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Have you got hard evidence of that?
Warner is as dirty and treasonous as we ever faced
My gut
This time the donation wasn’t for the children but for trees in Africa. The donation was made to CF while she was running for President.
Those tax free foundations are nothing but a warehouse for bribes for our Presidents. I wish Trump would disband or make an EO that no donations to any foundation can be made for a candidate while running for President or during their Presidency.
“I think it didn’t matter who Clinton’s opposition was. They just wanted to sew chaos in America, at least that’s what the prevailing thought was after the Facebook inquiry.”
What is interesting to point out to people, especially those who really and truly believe that Russia wanted Trump, is that Clinton should have actually been their preferred candidate. Why? Because Trump was promising during the campaign to do two things that would have the same effect on Russia presently as Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, and which resulted in the destruction of the Soviet Union. Those things were to massively increase the production of oil and natural gas, and to massively increase spending on national defense.
During the 1980s, we could not massively increase energy production, but the Saudis could. Reagan and his CIA director, Bill Casey, arranged for us to guarantee the safety of the Saudi regime, and to sell them massive amounts of sophisticated weaponry, in return for them massively boosting oil production. The Saudis held to their end of the bargain, by increasing production from about two and a half million barrels a day to nearly 12 million barrels a day, all within six months. The effect of this on energy prices was quite predictable and dramatic, as oil fell to $8 a barrel at one point in 1986. This choked off the foreign currency earnings of the Soviet Union, which badly hurt their economy. Of course we all know about Reagan’s massive defense build up, but the flip side of that was that the Soviet Union was forced to do the same thing to try to stay even, when its economy couldn’t even afford the level of spending that they had before Reagan came into office.
So if the Russians actually believed that they could have a big impact Upon Our election, you have to ask yourself whether they were crazy, or whether it is the people in this country who are so desperately opposed to Donald Trump that they will believe ANYTHING, no matter how preposterous, if they believe that it would hurt him. Trump was, as mentioned supporting these policies, and has actually implemented them. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was promising to continue Obama’s policy of choking off further exploration for fossil fuels, and shutting down the coal industry altogether, and made no mention whatsoever of a large defense build up. On top of that, I could virtually guarantee that Vladimir Putin has a detailed file on the entire Uranium One matter sitting in his desk in the Kremlin. So if you’re Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership, and you are faced with two candidates for the American presidency, one of whom is promising to implement policies that will destroy your nation’s economy, and the other of whom is promising the opposite and, as a bonus, you can blackmail that second candidate, which one of those two candidates would you support? One need not be a Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist to figure that one out. However, it seems that about half of the people in this country have an IQ below 30 on this issue.
Crooks!!
Everyone does, if they have done their own due dilligence on all the reports.
The fault of the Senate Intel committee is that it has taken the facts further than the facts demonstrate. The facts demonstrate Russian activity in the social media and media spheres. The facts do not implicate a pro-Trump bias in the effort.
But you are welcome to have not previously or now do your own due diligence to realize thet. And frankly Scarlet I don’t give a damn if you do or not.
Just wonder why Trump supporters have to feel uncomfortable if it was true that Russians did prefer Trump over Hillary?
Because it backs their claims he was improperly/illegitimately elected. Therefore should be impeached and removed from office.
Facebook was crazy especially right before the election. Stories that were complete nonsense about both Trump and Hillary flooded fb; sources and authors no one ever heard of before or since. I was kept busy deleting them all from my page and I don’t have many “friends” and do not usually discuss politics on fb. If Russia did anything on Facebook I am pretty sure that was what they did.
How that would help or hurt anyone is impossible to explain, my idea is it was done to create chaos- whoever did it.
The Kremlin would have behaved this way regardless of who was running and they have only hurt, not helped. They have set the landmine for Trump and succeeded in dominating the narrative. If the administration makes even the slightest misstep and the Dems get a majority in the midterms, he could be on the road to impeachment regardless of his innocence.
Hillary and Obama were giving Putin everything he wanted to the point that Obama was caught on video saying he could be even more flexible after the election was over... but Putin said screw that ... I want to put Trump in office... how stupid do they think we are?
... if it was true that Russians did prefer Trump over Hillary?
Probably true of alot of people who have come to know her would prefer anyone but her.
All good, but again, the Russian rationale is not economic or political, it is deep seated psychological resentment of the American republic and electoral tradition as a whole, which would be there regardless of who was running.
The Kremlin has a vested interest in diminishing the appeal of democracy for the sake of self-preservation. They fear the prospect of their own people rising up in demand of freedom, while the Russian people are embittered by their current incapacity to do so. So they take comfort in the midfortunes and chaos of free societies. It postpones the uncomfortable self-reflection they have to deal with on their own. Schadenfreude.
Lol.
The Kremlin is supposed to let
Dem get the evidence of collusion, that is the best way to hurt Trump.
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