U.S. Has 'Conclusive' Russia Leak Evidence

[DonViejo]

Source: The Daily Beast/Reuters


U.S. intelligence agencies have found conclusive evidence that Russia provided hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks via a third party, Reuters reports. The news agency reportedly interviewed three U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation, who contend that intelligence agencies obtained the evidence of the Kremlins role in the wake of the November electionnot before. Months earlier, authorities had concluded that Russia had directed the hacking, but it had not been clear if it had played a bigger role in the release of the leaked information. The report comes as top U.S. intelligence officials head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify before a special Senate hearing about the alleged hacking. Despite public statements released by both the CIA and the FBI, President-elect Donald Trump has voiced continued skepticism about the Kremlins role in the breach. Party leaders on both sides of the aisle have since called for a probe on the Russian role in the hack, and President Obama has taken heat from within the Democratic Party over failing to respond to the breach before the election. An intelligence report on the issue will be presented to Obama on Thursday and to Trump on Friday.

[link:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-cyber-idUSKBN14P04PREAD IT AT REUTERS]

###

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/01/05/u-s-has-conclusive-russia-leak-proof.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl

[tenorly]

1. If they have conclusive vote-tampering evidence, that should be released too.

I doubt Putin limited himself to mere e-mails; he knew that as flawed a candidate as King Con was, outright electronic vote theft would be needed as well.

A cinch, given the read-and-write software used in most U.S. electronic vote/tabulation machines.

[Botany]

3. Remember that the Russians hacked into the voter d-bases of different states too.

Putin and the Russians didn't just do that to have a look around.

[longship]

20. The voter registration data base is a public record.

How do you think political parties prepare walking lists and GOTV?

Anybody can get the voter registration lists.

Just thought you should know.

My best to you.

[Botany]

22. But why would the Russians need that information?

My guess is that it was used to target voters for voter suppression or
having votes flipped.

[aggiesal]

23. Yes, but ...

A list does not allow the parties to change voter information.

When you hack into a data base, they can change an active voter to an inactive voter
so when that voter arrives at the polls, they would not be allowed a real ballot instead
a provisional ballot. And we all know what happens to provisional ballots.

Also, they can change the address so the voters name does not appear on the precinct polls,
or the party affiliation so when you go to vote in the Democratic Party primary, suddenly your
name appears as a Republican, Independent, Green, ... anything other than your stated party.

[longship]

31. If the voter data base was changed, it would be very apparent.

There would be mayhem on Election Day if such changes were widespread. As there are no reports of such a thing, I presume that it was not changed.

Plus, the parties would be all over this.

I do not find that claim credible.

[Jacoby365]

35. And I recall reading of several instances

Before the election, where registered voters claimed their party affiliation had flipped from Democrat to Republican. I'm wondering if this happenened in areas where the Russians had hacked the database?

[csziggy]

32. I wonder if Russian hackers are involved in the Crosscheck voter purge operation?

That would be the most effective way for them to suppress voters. The Crosscheck system would not have the same level of security I would expect with official government voter databases but it certainly has been used to remove voters from the lists.

It would be a certainty that the Republicans in charge of Crosscheck would not be adverse to an increase in the number of voters removed from the databases so they would not be worried even if they saw evidence of hacking.

[triron]

45. I agree that some voter

registration data is available but then what is meant by 'hacked'?

[longship]

46. I have no idea what that means in this context.

But there's no way a hack could change the data without being detected. For one thing, the political parties would be all over it.

But I just don't what is meant by hacked here.

[Nwgirl503]

63. When you say "detected"

Do you mean on machines that have no paper trail and therefore no way to audit or investigate? Or where if the ballot count in a precinct is off by even one vote, that automatically restricts anyone from a recount, audit or investigation? Like in Michigan where "state records show 10.6 percent of the precincts in the 22 counties that began the retabulation process couldn’t be recounted because of state law that bars recounts for unbalanced precincts or ones with broken seals. The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldn’t recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.”

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/

[longship]

65. I mean that voter registration is a public record.

Anybody can get access to it. (Mostly political parties who willingly pay the nominal fee for such access -- trust me, I've done it.)

If there are discrepancies, either political party would be on it like stink on shit.

If one wants to make up rubbish that the voter rolls were hacked by the Russkies, one had better have evidence. This is especially true given that they didn't need to hack to have access. Plus, the fact that it would give them no more advantage than the Democratic Party or the GOP.

Now if you are going to claim that the voter roles were manipulated by the Russkies, you have a very tall mountain to climb. Nobody with any credibility is making that claim. NOBODY!!!

[riversedge]

2. I am sickened that McConnell put the clamps on a Select committee and McCain will not fight

for one anymore. damn!

[Botany]

4. They have to kill it because it will show that the Russian hacking was used by ....

..... the republicans to rig elections.

Russia was looking at state's voter d-bases and from that info things like
"cross check" were used to get the outcome that "they" wanted.

[Hortensis]

64. It'd just get bigger and bigger. How about Comey?

Comey knew the Russians were trying to elect Trump and defeat Hillary. A very good argument could be made for formal treason charges. He did knowingly give aid to an enemy engaged in actions against the United States, and we now know he did it over months by not properly informing the DNC of Russian hacking, only culminating in his final two interventions into the election that will dominate his place in the history books.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

And, of course, there are no doubt other laws Comey could be prosecuted under.

[bluecoat_fan]

5. My bet is "to WikiLeaks via a third party" is Manafort

nt

[Sunlei]

10. could be via some US person too. Any American with a computer can go to wikileaks and upload files.

Any 'third party' person linked to stolen files needs to be scrutinized for connections.

https://wikileaks.org/

[bluecoat_fan]

19. Russian Military to Putin to Third party to Wikileaks

If 'third party' is an American, NSA has the a copy of the WikiLeaks upload. Remember, ALL telecom fiber is collected by the NSA.

[Sunlei]

21. We evicted those two big "resorts" really fast. under constant guard & 72? hours to leave America.

[bluecoat_fan]

25. The 'Third party' now knows identity has been compromised.

Probably wont leave anywhere, more likely want to stay near a hospital due to pending plutonium poising.

Remember....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19647226

[Sunlei]

33. there could be many 'third parties'. Some Republicans seemed to know when stolen files were due on

WikiLeaks.

[tavalon]

51. We actually need to know who the third party was

[Paladin]

6. Sounds like it's all going to come out.

Short of an out-and-out coup, there's nothing Trump and his congressional pimps can do about it.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Have we determined that Obama failed to respond to the breach before the election?

Or is this regurgitated false news? I thought he went to Mitch McConnell, looking for bi-partisan support; and Mitch said no and that he would accuse Obama of acting in a partisan manner if he exposed the information to the public?

[shraby]

8. That's my recollection too. Mitch squashed anything because he said he would yell partisanship

if the public were allowed to know.
In fact 2 from the group of 12 said they would not agree to put the news in the public arena.

[GeorgeGist]

13. Ryan and McConnell let a 14 year old ...

Russian defeat the US.

[IndianaDave]

11. Yes, this is the correct account

of the events as they occurred before the election. McConnell is an expert at throwing a monkey-wrench into anything which would benefit the people or enhance their understanding of events. He knows full well that such information might lead to an effective democracy, and might also give people the impression that President Obama was working for the good of the country. These facts would be difficult to justify after his rigid positions on keeping anything good from happening between 2009 and 2017.

[Sunlei]

26. Jul 28, Hillary Campaign allowed their hired- Crowdstrike to release a public report

Jul 28, 2016 - The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike

Even more and earlier public information on a date limited search. Republicans didn't seem concerned at all. They probably all had secret briefings and still weren't 'concerned'

[Cha]

9. So much for tucker carlson and glenn greenwald's propaganda..

Jonathan Chait
✔ ‎@jonathanchait
Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald unite to dismiss Russian hacking story http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/glenn-greenwald-tucker-carlson-unite-to-dismiss-russian-hacking-allegations.html …
12:15 PM - 29 Dec 2016
162 162 Retweets 181 181 likes

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. From the source:

News Now | Thu Jan 5, 2017 | 8:28am EST

Thursday Morning Briefing: U.S. spooks say they have the goods on Russian hacking

http://postimg.org/image/hot7pp5r7/



Pedestrians cross the street behind a billboard showing a pictures of president-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Danilovgrad, Montenegro, November 16. 2016. REUTERS/Stevo Vasiljevic

[hedda_foil]

40. please tell me that billboard is photoshopped.

[progressoid]

58. It's real...

TRUE: http://www.snopes.com/russian-billboard-features-trump-and-putin/

A billboard showing President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Danilovgrad, Montenegro, on Nov. 16, 2016. The Russian city of Obninsk is also planning a rally in support of Trump on Saturday. (Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images)

[hedda_foil]

61. God help us... because it doesn't much look like the Constitution will.

[ProudLib72]

14. As long as

it delegitimizes tRump and Assange it will be good.

[TubbersUK]

15. The Reuters report

U.S. intelligence agencies obtained what they considered to be conclusive evidence after the November election that Russia provided hacked material from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks through a third party, three U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

U.S. officials had concluded months earlier that Russian intelligence agencies had directed the hacking, but had been less certain that they could prove Russia also had controlled the release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-cyber-idUSKBN14P04P?il=0

Plus Trump's latest pearls of wisdom (is he backtracking?).

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago
to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against "Intelligence" when in fact I am a big fan!

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people....

[Generator]

52. Bullpucky on that Trump tweet

Trump- you love the poorly educated none more than yourself. Assange is pro what people? Like you have any clue who he is owned by or compromised by. You fucking fool. Stop this nightmare someone please.

[PatSeg]

16. So Julian Assange

was able to say with a straight face that Wikileaks did NOT get the hacked info from Russia or a state source, though clearly he knew where it originated. As soon as I heard him say that, I figured there was a middle man.

[2naSalit]

28. Either

Manafort or Tillerson would be my first two guesses.

[csziggy]

36. There are some other Trump campaign guys who could have done it

I think one is Carter Page:

On September 26, 2016, Page stepped down from Trump's campaign. Page's resignation came amid speculation that he had engaged in discussions with top officials in the Russian government while in Moscow for a July speech. According to Yahoo News, U.S. intelligence officials were investigating allegations that Page had "talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president."[13] Shortly after the accusations were made, Page left the campaign. He denied the allegations to The Washington Post, saying, "All the ones that are mentioned in the various articles, I didn’t meet with any of those guys. It’s completely false and inconceivable that someone would even accuse me of that." Page then said he would leave the campaign to avoid further distractions: "This is another distraction that’s been created here. There’s so little time between now and the election, this is in the best interests of the candidate."
https://ballotpedia.org/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign_key_staff_and_advisors,_2016#Carter_Page

Trump’s Russia adviser speaks out, calls accusations ‘complete garbage’
By Josh Rogin September 26, 2016

The foreign policy adviser at the center of the storm over accusations that the Donald Trump campaign has secret ties to the Russian government has decided to publicly fight back. He denies meeting with sanctioned Russian officials during a recent trip to Moscow. In a long interview, Carter Page also told me he is taking a leave of absence from his work with the Trump campaign due to the controversy.

“All of these accusations are just complete garbage,” Page said about attacks on him by top officials in the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and unnamed intelligence officials, who have suggested that on a July trip to Moscow, Page met with “highly-sanctioned individuals” and perhaps even discussed an unholy alliance between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Last month, Reid wrote to FBI Director James B. Comey asking him to initiate an investigation into Page’s Moscow visit, where Page gave a speech at the graduation ceremony of the New Economic School. Without naming Page, Reid said the FBI should investigate his meetings as part of the larger look into whether the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Russian government to tamper with the U.S. presidential election.

Citing “a well-placed Western intelligence source,” Yahoo news last week reported that the U.S. government had received intelligence reports that Page met with Igor Sechin, a friend of Vladimir Putin who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, and Igor Diveykin, a high–ranking Russian intelligence official. The article floated accusations that Page had conducted “talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president.” Various other reports have alleged Page met with Sergei Ivanov, who until recently was the chief of Putin’s presidential administration.
More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/09/26/trumps-russia-adviser-speaks-out-calls-accusations-complete-garbage/

[2naSalit]

38. I must have missed that one

so I'll add him to the short list.

[PatSeg]

39. Interesting

that we haven't heard much about Page recently. I suppose we should be watching for people leaving the country.

[csziggy]

44. Apparently not many had heard of him before he linked with Trump

The Mystery of Trump’s Man in Moscow
Reports of deep Russian ties swirl around Trump advisor Carter Page. Oddly, nobody in Russia seems to have heard of him.

By Julia Ioffe
September 23, 2016

<SNIP>

Enter Carter Page, a 44-year-old Ph.D., and business school graduate who claims an expertise in Russia and energy, yet who, I quickly discovered, was known by neither Russia experts nor energy experts nor Russian energy experts. (“I can poll any number of people involved in energy in Russia about Carter Page and they’ll say, ‘Carter who? You mean Jimmy Carter?’” says one veteran Western investor in Russian energy.) Page also, as I would be surprised to discover, appears largely unknown to Trump’s own campaign.

What I did find, however, is that while Page might not be helping Trump, Trump has been a significant help to Page. Since being named by Trump as an adviser, Page, who has spent his career trying to put together energy deals in Russia and the former Soviet Union, has finally begun to be noticed in the region. He is being treated in Russia as a person with potentially important ties in America. “He’s an extremely well-informed, authoritative expert on Russia,” says Mikhail Leontiev, a pro-Kremlin talking head and spokesman for Rosneft, Russia’s state oil giant. “People really respect him in this industry. He’s a very serious guy, and he has a good reputation.” According to the Yahoo report, U.S. intelligence believes Page had an audience with top Russian officials—including Rosneft head Igor Sechin—during a summer trip to Moscow. From what I could find about him, it’s hard to imagine he could have secured those meetings without that mention by Trump.

Page has also been the subject of some breathless coverage in the American press. A March Bloomberg profile touted his “deep ties” with “executives at Gazprom,” the state-owned Russian gas giant, whom he says he advised on some of its biggest deals of the past decade. Last month, the Post ran a piece that was breathless in a different way, casting him as a shadowy broker with potentially important ties in Russia, some of them unsavory. The Yahoo story also portrays Page as a well-connected, high-rolling businessman with “extensive business interests in Russia” and an office “around the corner from Trump Tower.”

Page has fueled all this by making some remarkable statements, including saying Putin is a better leader than President Barack Obama to a June closed-door meeting of foreign policy Brahmins in Washington. In July, in Moscow, he spoke at the New Economic School’s commencement ceremony, a university that had hosted Obama just seven years ago. Page used the speech to slam the “hypocrisy” of American foreign policy in front of a Russian audience, saying, “Washington and other Western powers have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.” He is now frequently quoted on Russian television, which hails him as a “famous American economist” and “adviser to Donald Trump on questions of foreign policy.”
MUCH more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/the-mystery-of-trumps-man-in-moscow-214283

[PatSeg]

47. Stranger than fiction

If all this was a novel or a movie, it would be considered too far-fetched to be taken seriously.

[csziggy]

48. If it were fiction, Carter Page would be a sleeper agent!

My husband wanted to know Page's past history and it's interesting how little is on his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Page

While he is said to be a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, there does not seem to be certainty of when he was born or where he grew up.Most of the information about his prior to getting involved in the Trump campaign seems to have come from a biography on his company website.

He is a real enigma!

[PatSeg]

49. Ooooh

This is getting really interesting!

[PatSeg]

37. And very possibly

someone we haven't heard of. A real life spy thriller!

[TubbersUK]

17. Trump's latest pearls of wisdom (is he backtracking?).

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people....

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago
to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against "Intelligence" when in fact I am a big fan!

[90-percent]

24. The media lies to make it look like I am against "Intelligence" when in fact I am a big fan!

In much the same way as the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz loved intelligence. He loves the poorly educated. Some people call you poorly educated, I call you my base, to paraphrase the benevolent philosophical empath George W. Bush.

-90% JIMMY

[NickB79]

54. I love how he has to point out he's a "big fan" of intelligence

Respected, smart people don't have to say shit like this because everyone knows it already.

[randome]

18. "But one in two hundred thousand intelligence analysts aren't sure so..."

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Nitram]

27. We are facing a real crisis with Dump threatening to "re-organize" the CIA

and proclaiming that the intelligence is wrong. We can only hope that enough Republicans will join Democrats to shore up the Republic and stop this attempted coup in its tracks.

[Rene]

29. Check on server switching...changing vote totals

I've supported distributed batch scheduling software for years....
The question to ask is where is actual batch job/script to do the vote tally occurring.....what server/where?.
Application batch is set to run on a Primary server(A) OR a Secondary server(B) as an alternate or backup location. A Virtual name is defined that references both ServerA and ServerB actual server names. for example....virtual name: switch_exec
A 'switch' batch job/script is created to execute it.
The actual batch job has a JIL(Job Instruction Language) entry that defines machine: switch_exec

99% of the time the actual application batch will execute on ServerA. Execute the 'switch job'...and the virtual name now refers to ServerB....and that's where the actual application batch now runs.
Execute the 'switch job' again....and now the virtual name now is back to referring to ServerA and that's where the application batch will now resume executing. I believe this 'switching' happened in 1999 with the Gore/Bush totals being flipped at the ServerB site..and wrong totals sent back to finish on ServerA. Anyone watching their terminals wouldn't even have seen a blip on the screen.

[LaydeeBug]

30. I. fucking. love. you. nt

[malthaussen]

34. I'll wait for the official announcement, thanks.

What a wire service says three unnamed officials said to them is not really anything to get worked up over. And you know, the official pronouncement of "very high confidence" is enough to give one pause.

-- Mal

[LaydeeBug]

41. from whom?

[malthaussen]

59. The intelligence agencies involved. n/t

[LaydeeBug]

60. Is James Clapper gravitas enough?

http://crooksandliars.com/2017/01/dni-chief-james-clapper-russia-involved

[Skittles]

42. no wonder Trump INC wants to "revamp" intelligence

THEY'VE GOT THE GOODS

they better let it drop before that orange piece of SHIT is sworn in

[Generator]

53. I might add

Messing with the CIA when you are president does not necessarily end well. Not that I have any former presidents in mind or anything.

[sarcasmo]

43. A good reporter needs to find out how much money Trump owes to the Russian Mob.

[Generator]

50. But Glenn Greenwald says

It's a huge demented conspiracy theory by desperate Democrats. And that evil Washington Post is in on it. (They have had THE BEST coverage all year of any media against Trump) Isn't it weird when the far left sounds just like Trump? I think many have been paid or turned. Because the vehemence and the language on the left makes no sense to me. I looked at that Jackpine Radical site-never heard of it until someone here mentioned it-and those people have lost their minds. They actually believe Hillary is worse than Trump. Do they not need birth control, abortions, health care, clean air and a minimum wage? What has happened to the world? Black is white white is black. Russia is our friend. What the fuck is going on?

[orangecrush]

55. Carter Page...

"In espionage parlance, a cut-out is a mutually trusted intermediary, method or channel of communication that facilitates the exchange of information between agents. Cutouts usually know only the source and destination of the information to be transmitted, not the identities of any other persons involved in the espionage process (need to know basis). Thus, a captured cutout cannot be used to identify members of an espionage cell."
- Wikipedia

???

[Oneironaut]

56. "Impossible! I don't believe it exists, and therefore the evidence doesn't exist!"

Don't blame me - I'm just keeping up with the times (modern politics). I *feel* like Russia didn't influence our election, and therefore, they didn't. We are, after all, in a post-fact world, so what I feel is the only thing that matters.

Time to write a blog about my thoughts so that Fox News can pick it up and use it as a legitimate source.

[Blue_Tires]

57. Greenwald was unavailable for comment

He was too busy playing grabass with Tucker Carlson and penning his next Hillary smear piece

[Scurrilous]

62. K & R

[Javaman]

66. and yet, nothing will be done.

we are a cartoon democracy.