The Democrats and their media adjunct are turning the alleged activities of the Russian government leading up to the election last month into a crisis of the republic. If nothing else, the Democrats continue to demonstrate a great genius for destruction. Politico reports that electoral college electors have demanded an intelligence briefing before the electoral college vote. Subhead: “The request represents the latest effort by Democratic electors to look to the Electoral College as a possible bulwark against a Trump presidency.” Next up: an appeal to the joint chiefs for military intervention.
The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial today is titled — “Russian hackers and American hacks” (accessible here via Google) — introduces a badly needed note of skepticism:
Somewhere in the Kremlin Vladimir Putin must be laughing. The Russian strongman almost certainly sought to undermine public confidence in American democracy this year, and as the Obama Administration leaves town it is playing into his hands.
That’s the real story behind the weekend reports that U.S. intelligence services have concluded that Russia intervened to assist Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The stories are attributed to “senior administration” officials who won’t go on the record but assert murky details that are impossible to verify without seeing the evidence.
Mr. Trump is denouncing the claims with his usual subtlety, but he has a point about their timing and nature. “I don’t want anyone hacking us,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News Sunday, while blaming the leaks on Democrats. “I think it’s ridiculous” and “I don’t believe it.”
Democrats are still in shock from their defeat, and many want to add the Kremlin to FBI Director James Comey, fake news and the Electoral College as excuses that cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.
The new information in these latest stories is less about new intelligence than it is a judgment about Russian motives. Other sources who have seen the intelligence say there’s strong evidence that actors linked to high-level Russian officials hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) website. The Russians then posted them on sites they set up or handed them to WikiLeaks, though even the WikiLeaks transfer isn’t known for sure. The Administration made public the conclusion about the DNC hack months ago.
The difference now is that the intelligence community is said to have concluded with “high confidence” that the Russians did the hacking to help elect Mr. Trump. But we’re told the evidence for this conclusion is far from definitive, and multiple intelligence services offered no such judgments when briefing the House Intelligence Committee on the election-related hacks last week.
The New York Times cites claims from its sources that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee website but then didn’t leak any documents. [Note: Reince Priebus disputes the Times story and denies that the RNC was hacked based on the RNC’s consultation with the FBI.] But other sources say that while it’s clear the Russians were probing the RNC website, it isn’t clear they penetrated it enough to grab emails. This is in contrast to the months the Russians spent roaming through the DNC site. We’re also told that there’s no definitive intelligence about who hacked Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. His emails posted on WikiLeaks were arguably more politically damaging than those from the DNC.
Keep in mind that almost no one thought Mr. Trump would win the election, and it’s hard to believe the Russians were the sole prophetic exception. The hacking began last spring, and the Russian motive could have been to gather information to embarrass or blackmail Clinton officials once they were in office. The Kremlin could also merely have wanted to sow confusion and doubt on the election result.
If the CIA really does have “high confidence” about Mr. Putin’s motives, this would also be the first time in recent history. These are the same seers who missed the Russian invasion of Crimea, missed the incursion into southern Ukraine, and missed Mr. Putin’s foray into Syria. The intelligence community also claimed “high confidence” in 2008 for its judgment that Iran had suspended its nuclear-weapons program. That judgment conveniently shut down any further Bush Administration action against Iran. But a year later, in the Obama Administration, our highly confident spooks disclosed Iran’s secret Fordo underground facility.
To be continued, if not necessarily by me.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.