'Russia hacked the DNC' story just got much weaker
The key to the charge that the Russian government hacked the DNC server "to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency" has always been based on the findings of the private firm Crowdstrike.
Why? Because the FBI never even requested access to the DNC server. That leaves the burden of evidence on Crowdstrike.
“All the forensic work on those servers was done by CrowdStrike, and everyone else is relying on information they provided,” said Carr. “And CrowdStrike was the one to declare this the work of the Russians.”
It's hard to ignore how incredibly odd it is to leave critical evidence that effects a major foreign policy decision on a private firm that was hired out by the DNC. Making it even more odd is the response.
The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.
If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response.
Into this tense and politically-charged environment Crowdstrike has done a major "Oops!" concerning their hacking accusations regarding Russia.
U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank.
In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists.
VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened.
In other words, Crowdstrike invented fake news to buttress their DNC hacking claim.
This is huge.
Even before this development, the publicly available evidence implicating Russia was lacking.
But Pelosi, who has called for a bipartisan congressional investigation of the matter, also expressed some frustration with how little of the evidence the intelligence community was willing to make public. “I would hope that we could get more” of the report declassified, she said. “I know we have to respect sources and methods,” she added, “but I think that even Congress has the right to know more than they want to disclose to Congress, beyond the Gang of Eight.”
Russia, maybe even the Kremlin, could have been behind the DNC hack, but the evidence of this has not been disclosed.
"We haven't seen any real evidence unfortunately out of the FBI from it, they say they have it but they haven't revealed it. We have gotten some out of private vendors, and it's reasonably convincing… But the consensus… is that this is a plausible case,” Snowden said according to Russian state-run news outlet Sputnik.
Of course partisan Democrats have gone beyond facts and evidence. It's a matter of religious faith, which leaves some Democrats wondering what will happen when the evidence of Russia's misdeeds is never found?
Comments
I'm willing to bet this gets dragged out...
Until it's time for the next election, when it will be all we talk about for the ENTIRE 2 years.
So, 4 years of bullshit while nothing gets done because they're chasing a fabricated, then retracted story.
It's like a politician's wet dream.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
It's the Dems
Birtherism conspiracy.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
That's exactly what it is. I never thought of it that way.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Why is Assange ignored?
He has clearly said numerous times the leak was from inside the DNC. From my view it is case closed.
Now there may be financial collusion between Russia and T-rump, but that's another issue.
The election may have been manipulated by Wisconsin and Michigan's voter suppression. However we all know for a fact the the Democraps manipulated their primary to select the $hill.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Feedback Loop
Doesn't matter, the damage is done.
Everything revolves around a predetermined answer: Putin did it.
Therefore everything has to be forced to fit that notion, any means necessary.
Assange is a puppet of Putin...
Assange states that he didn't get this from Russia, was a leak from inside
Of course that is what a puppet of Putin would say...
Green Party is now an arm of Putin and the Republicans according to Democrats, because also that Stein was in Russia at a table with Putin.
No matter the response that is given, it is forced to again revolve around the predetermined answer.
What kind of financial collusion?
Trump got 20 times more media coverage than he paid for, much of it from the Hillary team and her media supporters as THEY lined him up to get the Republican nomination in order to have a 'soft' target for the election.
$2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump
The biggest fatal mistake was the Hillary team playing the Russia/Putin card against Trump. Trump played along skillfully (look back at his responses) and Hillary doubled down and doubled down again. This was a huge mistake. Trump had ten shitloads of trash in his background which would have been much more damaging to him if it was spread out on the ground.
Russia is nothing but a distraction for the American public.
bank loans...
after his most recent bankruptcy. No taxes, no info though.
So to clarify it may be T-rump and Russian oligarchs are playing funny money, but I see no evidence of Russian election influence.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
yep. n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
@Lookout There was more than one
There was more than one digital thing the Democrats didn't like, all of which they've been calling "Russia Hacking the Election." They mash together Guccifer 2.0 hacking them, the leak from within the DNC to Wikileaks, and the silliest of all, the successful phishing attempt on John Podesta (it's hilarious that the head of the Podesta group would fall for something only one level up from the Nigerian prince needing you to deposit money in his account).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Anyone attending a classified briefing
can come out and lie about what has been said and it would not be a crime. It would only be a crime if they told the truth.
Do we then have to assume that anyone who attends these meetings and says there is undeniable proof that "the Russians did it" are actually lying?
Comey inadvertently revealed a little of the truth in his response. I do believe that there really IS a conspiracy to blame Russia for the 'wrong' person getting elected against all odds (and Deep State desires).
Full transcript: FBI Director James Comey testifies on Russian interference in 2016 election
There never will be proof that the Russian government hacked the DNC because I have seen absolutely nothing definitive that proves they did it.
BTW, the real damage to Her was done by the FOI requests to the State Department for emails from Her's private server. You can see her favorable ratings drop with each new release since the fall of 2015 and watch the Trumpster's increase and cross over as he skillfully used the content of these emails against her - 'put her in jail'. Another fact is that the media had a field day with 'pay-to-play' and 'private persona vs. public persona'. Comey's letter about new investigations was just a reminder of 'put her in jail'.
The DNC hacks mainly pissed off the Bernie supporters because it was simply proof of what they already knew.
The Podesta phishing trip revealed a pile of slime because he and his brother also used the email address for some of their disgusting personal emails that were, deservedly, ripe for revelation and exploitation.
Which begs the question, at this point,
why would anyone believe Clapper about anything?
And Comey's blink rate was quite rapid the day I saw him testify, that supposedly being a deception "tell."
Did he?
Did he blink a bunch?
Anyone know Morse code?
When you repeat a lie often enough
people start to believe it. That is what they are truly counting on.
Have to keep the facade of a two party system going, dont'cha know. The fact that it is really all one party made up of TPTB is to be hidden at all costs!
Why are you folk still awake? Go back to sleep. Sleeeeep! Put your trust in us - TPTB.
Sigh.
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
That "the Russians did it" is total nonsense
- Someone probably just logged on to Podesta's account, his password being generally known.
- He could have been phished. That's off the shelf software. You send someone an email directing him to log onto his email account for some made-up reason. The URL within the email pointer is actually your phishing software on a server somewhere in the world. The vic logs on and types in his password. You now have his password. If this happened where is the original phishing email???
- Someone then logs on and dumps all the email. You have to have a trail of this data that leads to the perp and then to Wikileaks. Where is that?
- Why would Russia do this? For a flake that was supposed to lose anyway, at the risk of getting caught, and having to deal with an already hostile Clinton admin?
- This is what the US does, all over the world, all of the time. All of this crap is clearly psychological projection. I have never heard anyone from any US admin say that they will stop data espionage because it's wrong to interfere in another sovereign country's affairs? Hah, you have got to be kidding. Where and when did we get this moral duality?
- This is a stupid tactic on the part of the Democrats. What do they expect to get out of this? Will Trump abdicate and give the office to Hillary Clinton? Will the Democrats win votes as they ignore real voter's issues to spend time on this wholly made up nonsense? Even on this issue the Democrats will lose badly as no proof appears, for the simple reason, as Julian Assange says, the Russians didn't do it.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
But it's out there...
Almost doesn't matter how flimsy the case was at this point. The lie has served it's purpose and the truth can be printed as a redaction on the pack pages, just like they they did when they claimed Saddam had WMDs.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
@Dr. John Carpenter Not that I want to be
Not that I want to be tautological, but it works with the people it works with, revving them up with increasing intensity, and, equally, doesn't work with the people it doesn't work with, alienating them with increasing intensity. As far as the scope of either effect, my impression is that it has a sort of bell-curve-shaped peak and drop-off; there's a point at which you reach maximum range, where you're credible to the largest number of people you will ever get to believe you, and then it drops off because they lose interest (often because you've said the same thing so many times) or because you over-extend in the form of saying one thing too many, like Rachel Maddow saying that Macedonian hackers caused Bernie supporters to dislike Hillary as part of some general Russian/Eastern European plot against American democracy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
If it was anywhere as evident as many Democratic Party
partisans desperately want to believe then it would have been out in the open by now. 6 months after the farce of an election.
The only fact on the table.
The Dems selected the worst candidate available to them.
The FBI and CIA started
the investigation last July. They could extend this canard for years. But, as this diary shows, the carefully erected facade is slowly but surely disintegrating.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-tra...
March 20, 2017
@LaFeminista
And they did this because the most corrupt and ruthless candidate of either wing of the Two-Faced Trade-Off Corporate Party was what Those Who Matter - corporate interests, billionaires and the Psychopaths That Be - wanted.
Never vote for evil again!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Putin on the 'golden showers' dossier
This is how an intelligent and rational man responds to those false allegations. One cannot argue with his summation at the end - "It speaks volumes as to the degradation that has taken place amongst Western elites including those of the US".
Every time I hear Hillary OR the Trump talk I'm fucking embarrassed. Are there no statesmen in America anymore? Teh stoopid has now infected the highest reaches of government in the US.
Comrade Putin is smarter than Medusa and the Hairball
combined. His observations are quite on point--and correct. Trump is being undermined by the deep state and its minions or co-dependents--do we need to name names? I think Putin was painting a nicer picture of the Drumpf than deserved but overall his remarks were realistic--unlike our hysterical MSM.
@CB
Gotta admit that Putin is sane, sensible, pragmatic and right freaking on in this situation.
Not to mention that any of the things he's done/may be doing are dwarfed by the horrors committed and planned by the Psychopaths That Be who are running the psychopaths they put into public office in the US...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
This all likely, but
VOA is not what I would call a credible website (looking through it a little more, it looks more like straight up Republican propaganda than actual news). I'm doubly suspicious because when I search for similar stories online, all I get is straight up regurgitation of the original article from many sources that I would take with a massive grain of salt (although it's the regurgitation rather than the sources that really makes me suspicious).
Uh huh
I just took a look at VOA, and you need a better pair of glasses.
Nevertheless, if you need a better source, use this one.
Looking at it, I definitely made too quick a judgement
Their headlines in the US section look made me really suspicious, but the actual articles seemed more neutral. I should have read a bit deeper.
Looking at it, I definitely made too quick a judgement
Their headlines in the US section look made me really suspicious, but the actual articles seemed more neutral. I should have read a bit deeper.
Here's the bottom line truth.
Somebody hacked a couple of computers.
In 2016, nobody but U.S. Democrats, media, etc. interfered with a U.S. election.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/big-lie-russia-interfered-us-preside...
The more we dig into Russian "dirt"
the more we see of Hillary's hands.
I was very disturbed to hear Snowden support this shit.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So what made Crowdstrike retract and damage their credibility?
I cannot imagine why they would do it quite frankly. The Western media gladly and without proof is taking up every conspiracy theory with no checking the facts.
I know when I went to their site and others who claimed knowledge of the hacking that I saw more selling pitch for their services that anything else. Did the professional IT people start rejecting Crowdstrike bids because they knew their claims were technically inept?
The two 'sources' that CrowdStrike
used forced them to retract their statements. They got caught misrepresenting what their sources actually said. The Ukrainian military was one of their customers and the other was a valuable source for insider information. They had no choice but to partially retract the claims.
I think CrowdStrike was in the pay of a third party - someone connected with Hillary's campaign - to try and get some shit to back up the "Russia hacked the presidency" story and they got nailed.
The fact that the FBI has not checked the DNC computers themselves allows them plausible deniability when the shit eventually hits the fan. The FBI can blame it all on CrowdStrike not doing a proper job.
What's the diff?
Someone got the truth out there and if it had been an American we'd be thanking them.
This whole thing smells very "Birth Certificate-y" to me.
And reeks of institutional insanity.
We need a new party. Enough of this shit. They think we're stupid and have no where to go. "They" being both parties.
Another cringeworthy pseudoinvestigation underway.
James Comey has seemingly mastered the art of appearing busy while accomplishing nothing. The investigation, if it may be called such, was a paragon of non-information gathering, improper procuring of potential witness information, and grossly incorrect reasoning (a euphemism in this case) about what a "reasonable" prosecutor would do.
Now we have presenile Pelosi, Chuckles Schumer, bunches of DemonRATs screaming about Russia's villainy. They demand investigation of Russia's "subversion" of our electoral process. They claim Russia hacked the DNC computers.
Why has the DOJ not subpoenaed all DNC computers, Despicable Debbie, and Disgraceful Donna to provide testimony substantiating their hysterical claims. NO ONE has yet to deny the authenticity of the DNC leaks (which is what they were). Who cares about Crowdstrike? Get the evidence from DNC by subpoena and not by innuendo. Why has DOJ not issued such subpoenas?
Most obviously, they don't want to. Why? Sessions is supposedly on Trump's side. Why doesn't he DEMAND access to DNC computers, rather than meekly asking "please"?
See my post above
for a possible reason why Sessions does not want to take control of DNC computers.
The two 'sources' that CrowdStrike
I just had an interesting thought. What if investigators looking at the DNC computers found evidence that they had been leaked? That someone internal had copied the data. And what if that person turned out to be Seth Rich? Maybe it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie and steer clear of those computers - unless it is to wipe them clean?
Although the supposition of "plausible deniability" may be true
ultimately, the investigative deficiencies of the FBI will redound to the FBI--not a good thing for Comey, and to a lesser degree to Sessions.
The FBI works directly with DHS
in these types of cases. According to reports, these agencies knew about the hacks in the late summer/fall of 2015. They asked the DNC to look for suspicious activity but did not notify the DNC they were under actual attack until late March 2016 when the DNC concurrently discovered the hacks. The DNC then hired CrowdStrike to investigate in May, 2016. The DNC computers continued to be compromised until as late as June of 2016.
The real story here is why did the FBI/DHS withhold information until after the most damage was done and why did they allow CrowdStrike to do the investigation when they already had much of the data?
CB, there's a lot of shit going on
that we, mere mortals, will never understand. This may not be 11 dimensional chess but it certainly defies logic.
Thinking back in time. Fr Guiddo Sarducchi
and the a-going and a-coming star. That was back when I would stay up for SNL.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
More info on CrowdStrike and Ukraine
Here's an interesting discussion on the veracity of CrowdStrike and the Ukrainian connection and how it originally got wings. It is long but well worth the read. It makes a good companion to your diary. The more we look at the details, the weaker this case becomes.