June 21, 2018

"Obama cyber chief confirms 'stand down' order against Russian cyberattacks in summer 2016."

Writes Michael Isikoff at Yahoo News.
As intelligence came in during the late spring and early summer of [2016] about the Russian attack, [Michael] Daniel instructed his staff on the National Security Council to begin developing options for aggressive countermeasures to deter the Kremlin’s efforts, including mounting U.S. “denial of service” attacks on Russian news sites and other actions targeting Russian cyber actors....

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, asked about a [passage in the book “Russian Roulette”] in which one of Daniel’s staff members, Daniel Prieto, recounted a staff meeting shortly after the cyber coordinator was ordered by Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, to stop his efforts and “stand down.” This order was in part because Rice feared the options would leak and “box the president in.”

“I was incredulous and in disbelief,” Prieto is quoted as saying in the book. “It took me a moment to process. In my head, I was like, did I hear that correctly?” Prieto told the authors he then spoke up, asking Daniel: “Why the hell are we standing down? Michael, can you help us understand?”

Daniel has confirmed that the account was “an accurate rendering of what happened” in his staff meeting....

81 comments:

rhhardin said...

Sounds okay to me. Counterattacking doesn't stop the attacks, it just messes up the internet more by removing the idea that stealth would be a good idea.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

So Rice and Obama are to blame for Hillary's loss.
Saboteurs! Russian spies!

Matt Sablan said...

Can't box the President in. He promised more flexibility.

Jason said...

WHO ORDERED THE CODE RED?

Jersey Fled said...

Another Obama fail.

Of course this didn't prevent him from demagoging the issue later.

Jason said...

This is the business we have chosen! I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The worst part is not the "standing down" - it's pretending that they weren't fully aware of this while blaming the Russian interference for Hillary's loss. The associated (completely invalid) uproar has done tremendous amounts of damage to our society. Assholes!

Darrell said...

This has been going on since the birth of the internet. All countries probe and test each other's security. DOS attacks are more provocative, but we see that we have confirmation that Obama was doing that. And retaliation under a false premise, too. Russia didn't hack the DNC. Did Obama order these to give the lie cover?

David Begley said...

Was Putin paying Obama and Rice? Did the Obama team get paid by Iran? Or did Obama help our enemies for free?

Henry said...

In the Summer of 2016 the President was less than a season away from being a lame duck. What "box" could they possibly be talking about? What was the White House trying to do that was out-of-the-box?

We already have heard, from other accounts, that the Obama administration worried that highlighting Russian interference would lend credence to Trump's attacks on Hillary's security follies, and anti-establishment message.

They were convince the Russian interference was negligible. In this they were completely correct.

They were convinced Trump would lose. In this they were completely wrong.

Being wrong on the latter, they changed their tune on the former.

Henry said...

and _bolster_ his antiestablishment message.

Oso Negro said...

Children in cages! Uncle Tom’s cabin! Old Yeller is dead!

David Begley said...

Susan Rice and Val Jarrett are the Rosetta Stones to the criminality and corruption in the Obama Administration.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

That sneaky Valerie Jarrett invited more Russian dirty tricks by tacit Government acceptance of the hacking they were doing. This was done at the same time the FBI Gestapo was sending out its Spy division try to entrap associates of Trump into Russian contacts. It was a spider web of deception that Hillary invested millions of dollars into weaving to catch Trump.

But Trump has caught them.

Bad Lieutenant said...


Jersey Fled said...
Another Obama fail.

Of course this didn't prevent him from demagoging the issue later.

6/21/18, 7:20 AM

I forget, was this before or after Obama surrendered American control of the internet?

exhelodrvr1 said...

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/06/20/honored-dead-come-home/

This is a HUGE deal!!
Waiting for the media and the Democrats to show appreciation for this.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Blogger rhhardin said...
Sounds okay to me. Counterattacking doesn't stop the attacks, it just messes up the internet more by removing the idea that stealth would be a good idea.

6/21/18, 7:00 AM


In English please, if you think you can?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Will Mueller investigate? Obstruction of Justice!

Bad Lieutenant said...

Waiting for the media and the Democrats to show appreciation for this.


Appreciation? Since PDT brought them home, they probably want the remains locked in a cage with necrophiles.

Big Mike said...

The entire Obama administration seems to have had a cavalier attitude towards all aspects of cyber security. I’m gobsmacked that anyone would own up to being Obama’s cyber chief.

Mike Sylwester said...

President Obama could have done something to impede Russians from buying Facebook ads.

However, Obama stood down, and so Donald Trump was elected President.

I hope our Intelligence Community is keeping a close eye on MySpace.

Matt Sablan said...

"The entire Obama administration seems to have had a cavalier attitude towards all aspects of cyber security."

-- Between that and the disastrous roll out of the ACA's website and general data management, it is a wonder that Obama will probably be remembered as the first modern president of the digital age.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Now why would he do that? More flexibility? The reset? Thought HRC was going to win so not willing to counter the Russians cyber warfare?

Using Inga's logic this sounds like TREASON!

Mike Sylwester said...

Fortunately, Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller has indicted a Russian company called Concord for using the Internet to meddle in our elections.

Unfortunately for Mueller, however, Concord hired a lawyer who is defending Concord against the indictment in court.

Recently Concord's lawyer submitted to the judge a motion that begins with this paragraph.

[quote]

Having produced not one iota of discovery in this criminal case the unlawfully appointed Special Counsel requests a special and unprecedented blanket protective order covering tens of millions of pages of unclassified discovery. Having made this special request based on a secret submission to the Court and a hysterical dithyramb about the future of the American elections, one would think that the Special Counsel would cite to case holdings that support this remarkable request. But no, instead, the Special Counsel seeks to equate this make-believe electioneering case to others involving international terrorism and major drug trafficking, and relies only on irrelevant dicta from inappropriate, primarily out-of-circuit cases. In short, fake law, which is much more dangerous than fake news.

[end quote]

Concord's lawyer seems to lack proper respect for Mueller.

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/8r6nrf/holy_shit_the_defendants_motion_in_court_today/

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

And again, how is this compared to any fact known about Trump's interactions with Putin and Russia?

- Now we are re-arming eastern Europe
- Now that we've killed about 400 Russian "contract fighters" in Syria
- Now that we are selling natural gas to Europe

mockturtle said...

However, Obama stood down, and so Donald Trump was elected President.

C'mon, Mike. You surely don't believe that Hillary's loss had anything to do with Russian hacking, do you? [no sarc]

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Before or after he told Putin to "Cut it out"?

Darrell said...

President Obama could have done something to impede Russians from buying Facebook ads.

Or he could have gotten Zuch to give him free ads saying that Hillary was not "a" satan, she was our satan. Or "The future does not belong to those who insult our prophet satan."

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Obama sure missed an opportunity by not escalating to outright war with Russia. His little proxy fight in Syria sure backfired big time, and his little adventure, along with Generalissima Hillary in Libya, those were good times. BTW Hillary, the enslaved women being sold in marketplaces there send their love! Maybe this is where he could have recovered America’s pride!

Darrell said...

Obama never cancelled any war games, though. He was one tough fighting son-of-a-bitch.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Can you imagine waking up in mourning every morning that Hillary is not president?

Curious George said...

This order was in part because Rice feared the options would leak and “box the president in.”

Dagwood said...

Maybe she thought they were discussing a new attack on the Benghazi consulate.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
I'm Full of Soup said...

"Concord's lawyer seems to lack proper respect for Mueller. "

Mike: That was an interesting post. Thanks

And I sorta wish the media had this attorney's guts and would go and stand outside Mueller's house and stick a microphone in his face and ask him when he would be done his investigation.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Was Susan Rice concerned our own cyber sleuths might stumble on Brennan/ Clapper nefarious ways?

Darrell said...

Susan Rice was too busy composing a Memo in her head.

Amadeus 48 said...

But those cryin' kids! Did you see that story about earthquakes in Yellowstone? Migrant children are being cuffed and drugged leads on AOL. Congrats to Yahoo for finding some news.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“C'mon, Mike. You surely don't believe that Hillary's loss had anything to do with Russian hacking, do you? [no sarc]”

Y’all are being facetious but I’m fascinated by the question that no seems to ask. What possible interest would Obama have in a Hillary victory? How would he benefit personally? The dude was ignorant and clueless when it came to governing, but keenly pragmatic when it came to his own advancement. He had no compelling reason to want Hillary to win and a heap of reasons to wish for her loss.

DanTheMan said...

Was this before or after the Chinese hacked the OPM and got the personnel files of twenty MILLION government employees and applicants?

Or is that already down the memory hole?

And the only way the Russians hacked Hillary is if Seth Rich (RIP) posthumously changed his citizenship.

Mike Sylwester said...

I doubt that Russian Intelligence was significantly interested in the DNC's office politics or in DNC's favoritism of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

Russian Intelligence does not have infinite resources. Russian Intelligence has to prioritize its efforts against terrorist groups, organized crime, anti-Russian activities in Uktaine, Georgia, and so forth.

Russian Intelligence was not, for example, phishing John Podesta's e-mail.

However, Russia has lots of freelance hackers who on their own initiative hack and phish. If such a hacker gains access to a computer sytem that is extraordinarily valuable, then the freelance hacker might sell that access to Russian Intelligence.

According to an article titled The FBI's Contractors, DNC Servers and Crowdstrike, written by Jeff Carlson and published on the The Markets Work website, Russians began hacking a DNC server in July 2015 (fifteen).

My own speculation follows.

Some freelance hacker in Russia managed to get into the DNC server and found documents and e-mails in which DNC employees were discussing searches of the NSA database. A few private businesses (Crowdstrike might be an example) had FBI contracts that enabled them improperly to search NSA databases for information about Republican politicians. Such a contracting business reported such information to the DNC, and this secret operation was discussed in the DNC's internal documents and e-mails.

It is not likely that the NSA database was searched from the DNC server, because such searches normally could be conducted only from a SCIF server. However, the DNA discussions of the contractors' searches might have contained valuable details about search procedures and search results. Such details might be exploited by Russian Intelligence decryption specialists.

I think that was the only significant reason why Russian Intelligence might have became involved in hacking into the DNC computer and gathering all its files. In those files, Russian Intelligence was looking for details about the FBI contractors' searches of the NSA database.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"What possible interest would Obama have in a Hillary victory?"

On a personal level, his legacy. If he really cared about the policies he started, such as Obamacare, their survival.

Mattman26 said...

Dithyramb; cool!

CWJ said...

dithyramb.

What a great word. Thanks, Mike.

FIDO said...

But Trump is the appeaser and colluder with Russia. Sure.

hombre said...

One might theorize that Rice believed the Russian cyber activity was intended to help Hillary - since the Clintons were bought and paid for.

Mike Sylwester said...

I continue my speculation from my comment at 9:00 AM

-----

For the sake of convenience, I will use the made-up name "FBIContractor" to refer to one of the private companies that had an FBI contract that enabled searches of the NSA database for information about Republican politicians.

Since the beginning of 2015 (fifteen) FBIContractor routinely searched the NSA database for information about the major Republican Presidential candidates -- Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, etc. However, such searches did not find much information that was useful to the DNC.

This situation changed dramatically, however, when Donald Trump entered the Presidential race in June 2015. In contrast to the other Republican candidates, Trump had been involved for many decades in an extraordinary variety of business activities in foreign countries -- in particular, in Russia. When FBIContractor began in June 2015 to search the NSA database for information about the new Republican candidate Trump, a great quantity of potentially scandalous information him was found.

FBIContractor informed the DNC, and the search procedures and results were discussed in the DNC's internal documents and e-mails.

Some freelance hacker in Russia happened to find those discussions and informed Russian Intelligence, which paid the hacker a lot of money for his help in obtaining more such files from the DNC server.

Thus, Russian Intelligence decryption specialists learned that, for example, using a particular keyword to search the NSA files resulted in a particular batch of found files. Such details might help Russian decryption specialists understand how NSA's search procedures worked and how NSA's databases were structured.

------

The fact that the DNC was favoring Hillary Clinton in her race against Bernie Sanders was not significantly interesting to Russian Intelligence.

Later, however, when the US Intelligence Community became aware that Russian Intelligence was fishing around in the DNC's server, then Russian Intelligence might have been happy to encourage the false idea that Russian Intelligence was fascinated primarily by the DNC's office politics.

FIDO said...

At heart, I think that the base...falsehood that drives most of Democrat foreign and immigration policy is this: everyone (save themselves) is cooler than Americans.

They weep that they were born in this 'inauthentic' 'flawed' culture.

So illegal, dirt poor illiterate Mexican kids are cooler than American Midwesterners and deserve more consideration. Russian kleptocrats should be given more credence and flexibility than a Republican who actually believes 80% of what you do.

Except that percentage of agreement is dropping precipitously.

The Drill SGT said...

"What possible interest would Obama have in a Hillary victory?"

A Hillary veto keeps Obama legacy in place

Hillary cabinet members keep the lid on various Obama departmental mis-behaviors. e.g. IRS, ATF, FBI, DOJ, NSA, etc

The Drill SGT said...

I note that the whole premise of the article seems to point to the NSC having been warped into an executive Agency rather than presidential consultants. meaning:

If the POTUS wants options on how to strike ISIS or how to counter Chinese tariffs or Russian cyber attacks, the correct and old fashioned way is to direct the appropriate Secretary to develop options for consideration. Those options flow up into the NSC where they are reviewed and presented by the department to the POTUS along with considerations from the NSC. Further refined guidance may be given to the dept at that time including,

"Not only no! Hell no!! start over again and give me options that include, you know... options"

In the case of Russian Cyber attacks the appropriate lead dept would be DHS, who holds the brief on protecting US infrastructure, or US CyberCommand which actually does that protection and has the cyber weapons to punish the Russians (along with the CIA.)

The NSC has not the expertise to build real options beyond power point bullets.

hombre said...

“Y’all are being facetious but I’m fascinated by the question that no seems to ask. What possible interest would Obama have in a Hillary victory?”

Nobody asks because the answers are obvious.

Mike Sylwester said...

I continue my speculation from my comment at 9:25 AM

-----

At the end of April 2016 (sixteen), the US Intelligence Community became aware that Russian Intelligence had copied much of the content of the DNC server.

I speculate that the US Intelligence Community figured out that Russian Intelligence had searched especially for DNC files that mentioned Donald Trump's business activities in Russia.

The actual reason why Russian Intelligence searched especially for such files was that they were most likely to contain DNC's internal discussions about FBIContractor's searches of the NSA database. Furthermore, Russian Intelligence was especially able to analyze details in such files, because the details were about Russia. For example, if a FBIContractor search of the NSA database found information about Trump's contact with some Russian person, then Russian Intelligence was especially able to analyze the details of that contact.

Although that was the actual reason why Russian Intelligence was searching especially for files about Trump, the Trump-hating geniuses at the top of our Intelligence Community assumed that Russian Intelligence was searching for information that it could use to blackmail Trump.

Our geniuses were obsessed with their assumption that Trump was being blackmailed by Russian Intelligence. Any information that the US Intelligence Community could interpret as proving such blackmail was interpreted along those lines.

If Trump indeed did contact some Russian person and if Russian Intelligence was especially interested in a DNC file that mentioned that contact, then that proved that that Russian person was involved in the blackmailing of Trump for Russian Intelligence.

No other possible explanation of Trump's contact with that Russian person ever was considered by our geniuses in the Intelligence Community.

Carol said...

Hysterical dithyramb yet.

Priceless!

Sebastian said...

Going aggressively after Russia in 2016 would have "boxed the president in."

It would have highlighted the "extreme carelessness" of the Dem candidate who exposed American confidential communications to foreigners.

It would have highlighted the failure of O and Hill's policy to "reset" relations and O's exercise of "flexibility" after 2012 leading the free pass in Syria, Ukraine, and Crimea.

It would have disrupted the insurance-policy scheme the CIA was cooking up to pin blackmail or collusion (whatever) on Trump.

Big Mike said...

The DNC servers and RNC servers are obviously high value targets for cyber espionage. So why didn’t the Russians (and Chinese and Brits and Israelis) not try to penetrate the RNC servers?

The answer is that they did — but the Republicans take cyber security seriously and thwarted the attacks — as far as we know! Dumbocrats, not so much. What was Podesta’s password? I have read that he used passw0rd.

Mike Sylwester said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike Sylwester said...

I continue my speculation from my comment at 9:46 AM

-----

The Trump-hating geniuses who headed our US Intelligence Community feared one possibility much more than any other possibility.

Russian Intelligence had used hacking to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton and would reveal the dirt shortly before the 2016 election.

In fact, Russian Intelligence did not intend to do so and did not actually do so.

However, the US Intelligence Community's fear became hysterical, even irrational. In its hysteria, the US Intelligence Community became panicked and obsessed by stupid stuff such as RT television news broadcasts, Facebook ads and Twitter bots.

Old fools like James Clapper became obsessed with the idea that Trump was advising Putin about which US states would be swing states in the USA's 2016 election so that Putin would buy Facebook ads targeting voters in those states.

Instead of subjecting such fears to the US Intelligence Community's normal analytic process, Clapper and his fellow hysterics appointed a special small committee of like-thinkers who predictably confirmed all the hysterical fears and suspicions without being challenged by the normal variety of expert analysts.

This absurd hysteria in our Intelligence Community has poisoned US politics disastrously and for a very long time.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

"Why?" is the correct question.
There are several reasons but the most important is: Iran. President O needed to keep the Ruskies on his side regarding the big beautify Iran deal.
THAT was to be President O's legacy, understand. It's the answer to many of President O's foreign policy blunders. He and his team really thought "the Iran deal" would be a crowning achievement and they were willing to give up quite a lot to get it.

Jupiter said...

"developing options for aggressive countermeasures to deter the Kremlin’s efforts, including mounting U.S. “denial of service” attacks on Russian news sites and other actions targeting Russian cyber actors"

I don't see any legitimate reason for US government employees to mount denial-of-service attacks against privately-owned internet servers, whatever "sites" they may be hosting. That is roughly the equivalent of letting the air out of the tires of limousines because they are driving Russians around. It might be something you feel like doing, but it is hard to see how it could be something you ought to do.

Mike Sylwester said...

I continue my speculation from my comment at 10:10 AM

-----

After the US Intelligence Community became aware that much content of the DNC servers had been transmitted to Russia, the FBI was assigned to study the situation at the DNC.

In this assignment, there was a problem for both the FBI and the DNC. One or both of the organizations knew that the DNC server had contained a lot of files discussing FBIContractor's searches of the NSA database to find information about Republican politicians.

The people in the FBI and in the DNC who knew that embarrassing fact did not want the NSA ever to examine the DNC server. If the FBI took possession of the DNC server, then the server eventually might be examined by the NSA's experts.

Therefore, the DNC refused to give the server to the FBI, and the FBI gladly accepted the refusal.

From then on, the DNC and FBI shared an interest in promoting the story that the only information on the DNC server that might possibly interest Russian Intelligence was information about the DNC's office politics.

The story was that Russian Intelligence wanted information from the DNC only so that Russian Intelligence would be able to disrupt our election and to cause Americans to lose faith in Democracy.

Nothing else on the DNC might interest Russian Intelligence, and so really studying the server was not necessary. In fact, destroying the server might send to the Russians a symbolic message that they should not ever try again to cause Americans to lose their faith in Democracy.

walter said...

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/21/587614043/fact-check-why-didnt-obama-stop-russia-s-election-interference-in-2016

So why didn't Obama's administration do more?

That isn't clear. Some former administration officials who have talked about it publicly have reproached themselves for not acting more aggressively. There also was a long-standing criticism of Obama that his foreign-policy making amounted to endless process with no outcomes — hours of meetings that yielded more meetings but no ultimate action.

Plus, the relationship between the United States and Russia is multifaceted and often intensely complicated:

Obama scaled back missile defense plans in Europe to placate Moscow.

Obama wanted Russia to play a role in the international agreement under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program — and Putin went along.

Obama spent the end of his presidency trying to bring Russia into a multilateral agreement to end the Syrian civil war, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ultimately never committed.

So Obama's team had to manage many spinning plates in addition to the active measures campaign it detected by the middle of 2016. One question Obama may address in his book is why he calibrated his choices in the way he did — whether he looked the other way on election interference to keep open other options elsewhere.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Lots of speculation.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Blogger The Drill SGT said...
"What possible interest would Obama have in a Hillary victory?"

A Hillary veto keeps Obama legacy in place

Hillary cabinet members keep the lid on various Obama departmental mis-behaviors. e.g. IRS, ATF, FBI, DOJ, NSA, etc"

What legacy? The Republicans doing away with the faltering Obamacare mess would be a best case scenario for Obama. He could spend the rest of his life claiming he brought universal health insurance to the American people but the evil Republicans did away for it. You can't prove a negative, so the dismantling of his laughable "legacy" effectively secures it. As for the scandals, please. He's never been held even slightly accountable for any of them and he knows perfectly well he never will be.
A Hillary loss means he continues to be the de facto head of the Democrat Party, continues to be the focus of prog adulation, and, most importantly, he continues to reap the financial benefits of that adulation. As a bonus, it settles a score from 2008 and greatly diminishes Clintonite power in the Democratic Party. There's no downside for Obama personally.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

And it has ever been about Obama personally. Naive to think otherwise.

Seeing Red said...

Old fools like James Clapper became obsessed with the idea that Trump was advising Putin about which US states would be swing states in the USA's 2016 election so that Putin would buy Facebook ads targeting voters in those states.

Instead of subjecting such fears to the US Intelligence Community's normal analytic process, Clapper and his fellow hysterics appointed a special small committee of like-thinkers who predictably confirmed all the hysterical fears and suspicions without being challenged by the normal variety of expert analysts.


The bank analogy was spot on.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He had no compelling reason to want Hillary to win and a heap of reasons to wish for her loss.

No.

1. HRC promised to re-nominate Merrick Garland to USSC.
2. She vowed to strengthen and reform Obamacare; Trump vowed to repeal and replace it.
3. She would continue feckless Iran policy; Trump would blow it up.
4. She would reliably keep the "scandal-free" myth going ALAP...

Without Hillary, there was the very real danger that Obama's misdeeds and abuses of power would come to light, including the news that he used her homebrew server throughout his admin, was very lax on cybersecurity and has thoroughly corrupted the heads of the FBI/CIA/NSA in his eight year reign of terror.

Mike Sylwester said...

From the linked article:
[Michael] Daniel instructed his staff on the National Security Council to begin developing options for aggressive countermeasures to deter the Kremlin’s efforts, including mounting U.S. “denial of service” attacks on Russian news sites ...

Did the Kremlin mount "denial of service" attacks on US news sites?

If so, then which US news sites?

If some US news site was subjected to a "denial of service" attack, then is that fact secret?

If so, then why is it secret?

Our US Intelligence Community at work, being stupid.

Curious George said...

"He could spend the rest of his life claiming he brought universal health insurance to the American people..."

ObamaCare was not universal health insurance. I doubt even President Clusterfuck would claim that.

Mike Sylwester said...

In the USA, "denial of service" attacks are done by Facebook, Google, Twitter and other such cyber-organizations -- against American citizens who are politically conservative.

For example, two African-American women -- who call themselves Diamond and Silk -- were subjected to a months-long "denial of service" attack by Facebook, on the bogus grounds that those two amusing women are a danger to our American community.

Many other such "denial of service" attacks can be listed.

The purpose of such "denial of service" attacks is to make Americans lose faith in Democracy. In other words, the purpose of Facebook and its ilk is the very same purpose that is attributed to evil Russian hackers.

Kevin said...

"Lots of speculation."

Imagine the level if it were Trump.

Yancey Ward said...

There is nothing inexplicable here- when you actually look at the Russian "interference" as outlined in the Mueller indictments, it isn't at all clear that the effort was directed against Clinton and for Trump- it is a mixed bag at best. Since everyone expected Clinton to win, anything that made it look like the election was hacked would redound against the winner of that election. That was why Obama ordered the stand down- no need to publicize the fact that some in the administration thought there was an outside influence sowing discord.

Yancey Ward said...

I will just remind people that the Obama Administration also claimed that entities like the RNC were under cyber-attack by "Russians". I have yet to see any actual evidence of these cyber-attacks, so I am not even sure I believe they occurred the way they are being described.

Matt Sablan said...

"I have yet to see any actual evidence of these cyber-attacks, so I am not even sure I believe they occurred the way they are being described."

-- I believe Rubio acknowledged hacking attempts on his campaign, but I don't believe he ever claimed they were Russian. The point is, his campaign didn't get hacked. Because no one fell for a basic phishing attempt. They didn't even have to spear phish Podesta!

Mike Sylwester said...

I have yet to see any actual evidence of these cyber-attacks, so I am not even sure I believe they occurred the way they are being described.

If the US Intelligence Community reveals the evidence, then the evidence will be torn into smithereens by skeptical computer-security experts.

That's why the public will not see any actual evidence.

What the public will see are only lots of redacted paragraphs that are blacked out.

Drago said...

Inga: "Lots of speculation."

Lots of speculation....from actual administration people who happened to be in the room and are first hand witnesses.

LOL

Amazing how the golden showers hoax dossier folks react when direct evidence of obama fecklessness is offered.

Too too funny.

Achilles said...

Inga said...
Lots of speculation.


This person believed the Steele dossier.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"1. HRC promised to re-nominate Merrick Garland to USSC.
2. She vowed to strengthen and reform Obamacare; Trump vowed to repeal and replace it.
3. She would continue feckless Iran policy; Trump would blow it up.
4. She would reliably keep the "scandal-free" myth going ALAP...

Without Hillary, there was the very real danger that Obama's misdeeds and abuses of power would come to light, including the news that he used her homebrew server throughout his admin, was very lax on cybersecurity and has thoroughly corrupted the heads of the FBI/CIA/NSA in his eight year reign of terror."

None of which means squat to Obama as there are no consequences for him and zero chance that the frozen chosen who are lining his pockets will ever allow themselves to care about these things. Trump's election frees Obama from ever taking responsibility for the outcomes of his feckless policies. No wonder he seems so relaxed and happy these days.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Some people seem to believe we're living in the early '70's...

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

what about the Macedonians?
THE MACEDONIANS!!!
Look what they did to the Peloponnese!