The Washington Post just posted a story of the evidence for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Today, Thursday, January 5th 2017, the Senate held a hearing to discuss the Russian hacking of the DNC and the US Presidential Election. The 50 page classified report will be released later. Trump and his transition team will meet tomorrow to go over the report.
Senior officials in the Russian government celebrated Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for Moscow, according to U.S. officials who said that American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.
The ebullient reaction among high-ranking Russian officials — including some who U.S. officials believe had knowledge of the country’s cyber campaign to interfere in the U.S. election — contributed to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow’s efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House.
The report also goes into details of who was hacked, how they were hacked, and who in Russian coordinated the attack.
U.S. officials who have reviewed the new report said it goes far beyond the brief public statement that Clapper and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued in October, accusing Russia of having “directed” cyber operations to disrupt the U.S. election, and concluding, in a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, that “only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
According to the Washington Post, the Russians were surprised that Trump won the nomination. Once he won the nomination, the Russians decided to support him with releasing the DNC hacked emails and pushing fake news stories on conservative media such as Breitbart. How the communications were intercepted between the Russian officials was not detailed.
U.S. officials said that Russia’s goals appear to have shifted over time. Moscow’s initial hacking operations targeted almost every major candidate, including Trump’s GOP rivals, as part of a fairly typical clandestine collection program.
Russia’s initial objective may have been merely to meddle and undermine the legitimacy of an assumed Clinton victory. But as Trump captured the GOP nomination and showed that he could remain competitive with Clinton, Russia’s aims became more ambitious, officials said. The final months of the race saw a steady stream of leaked emails that damaged Clinton’s candidacy, without any corresponding release to embarrass Trump.
Russia also used social media and “fake news” platforms as an “accelerant” to try to boost Trump and undermine Clinton, the second official said.
So what is Trump going to do when he hears the news tomorrow? Flip out? Start tweeting at 3am?
He has told all appointed ambassadors have to be back in the United States by January 20th. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the intelligence briefing held today. Who knows?