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White House Supports Claim Putin Directed US Election Hack (bbc.com)

The White House is suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in a hacking operation aimed at interfering with the U.S. presidential election. BBC reports: Ben Rhodes, adviser to President Barack Obama, said that Mr Putin maintains tight control on government operations, which suggests that he was aware. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest added that it was "pretty obvious" that Mr Putin was involved. "Everything we know about how Russia operates and how Putin controls that government would suggest that, again, when you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government," Mr Rhodes said. "And ultimately, Vladimir Putin is the official responsible for the actions of the Russian government." NBC reported that the U.S. had evidence that Mr Putin personally directed how information hacked by Russian intelligence was leaked. The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also released a statement asserting Russia had orchestrated the hack, including breaches on the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The contents of those hacks, passed to Wikileaks and posted online, were embarrassing to the Democrats and shook up the presidential campaign. The NBC report, which cited two unnamed senior officials, said the hacking campaign began as a "vendetta" against Mrs Clinton before becoming "an effort to show corruption in American politics and split off key American allies." Mr Putin is said to have been furious when Mrs Clinton, as secretary of state, questioned the integrity of 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia. He publicly accused her of encouraging street protests.

17 of 715 comments (clear)

  1. At least he's in esteemed company by rmdingler · · Score: 1, Informative

    Putin knew. Who didn't?

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  2. Fake News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    There is absolutely no evidence of this whatsoever. Putin wasn't sitting in some dark room personally observing this. What exactly did russia "hack"? It's not like every single election system in every county is the same exact hardware/software platform. "Election fraud.... what does that even mean?"

    This is obvious fake news brought to you by butthurt democrat supporters who STILL can't accept that their goddess lost. What a fucking joke.

    1. Re:Fake News by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, they are conflaiting a whole bunch of different leaks that exposed the Democrats, Hillary and even Obama to the corrupt people they actually are.

      The ONLY real hacking attempt we have of this election came from the Department of Homeland Security on Georgia state election offices. But don't let that fool you, it was the RUSSIANS!!!

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  3. Cut The Bull! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Anonymous sources claim...

    CIA Suspects...

    White House believes...

    None of this is evidence, let alone proof.

    All I'm seeing for the past several days is sour grapes, bitterness, and misdirection. What don't they want us looking at?

  4. tl;dr by Shiptar · · Score: 5, Informative

    There has been no specific evidence shared publicly to confirm Mr Putin's role or knowledge of the hackings.

  5. Assange was just on Hannity saying it wasnt Russia by BrookHarty · · Score: 5, Informative

    Assange was on Hannity today, and again, said the leaks did not come from Russia.

    Julian Assange Speaks to Hannity, Says That Russian Gov’t Was Not His Source

  6. Re:"Suggesting" ... by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is Secretary Of State Kerry today, unwilling to hang his hat on unnamed "intelligence officials" and their latest evidence free "analysis."

    It's all fun and games at CNN and MSNBC and the rest of the usual suspects; they don't hesitate to broadcast the 100% evidence free analysis of political appointees in the "intelligence community" as metaphysical certitude. But aim a camera at one of these politicians and suddenly it's "I'm not commenting on that."

    It's fake news folks and it's not going to work. Trump isn't some pansy ass RINO praying no one calls him a name or tries to put stink on him. You can echo this shit all you want. In the end it won't matter.

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  7. Re:"Suggesting" ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Here's a better suggestion. This Russia-did-it BS is coming from the same liar-in-chief who lied about not knowing that Hillary Clinton was using a private server. Obama was caught lying after WikiLeaks published emails from him to Hillary's private server.

  8. Re:"Suggesting" ... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Informative

    HRC and DNC baggages had enough anchors in them to sink the fucking Titanic.

    Clinton lost election. Full stop. Trump had zero to do with it. Putin had zero to do with it. The DNC made their beds with 'super delegates' long before the general election. When are they going to stop blaming everything from Ze Ruskies to Trump supporters?

    The whole election came down to a few swing states, namely Wisconsin and Michigan. States that Clinton didn't even bother to visit until late into the cycle. (And she just sent Kaine to WI). It's not hard to see when you compare the 2012 and 2016 elections, it makes it even easier since Stein and Johnson ran in both elections making them a good control. This was her election to lose and she did.

    Wisconsin:
    2012:

    1. Obama: 1,620,985
    2. Romney: 1,407,966
    3. Johnson: 20,439
    4. Stein: 7,665

    2016:

    1. Trump: 1,405,284
    2. Clinton: 1,382,536
    3. Johnson: 106,674
    4. Stein: 31,072

    Michigan
    2012:

    1. Obama: 2,564,569
    2. Romney: 2,115,256
    3. Johnson: 7,774
    4. Stein: 21,897

    2016:

    1. Trump: 2,279,543
    2. Clinton: 2,268,839
    3. Johnson: 172,136
    4. Stein: 51,463
  9. Have we forgotten the Pentagon Papers were stolen? by Xenographic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, it's more like the Pentagon Papers, which as you might remember were stolen, though they disputed the charge based on him not using them for personal gain and eventually got the charges thrown out due to illegal acts by the prosecution.

    Even if we assume the DNC leak was a Russian hack despite the fact that most of the evidence boils down to what can be paraphrased as "trust our anonymous sources, they've got this, it's totally not like that time with the WMDs where we helped cause a war over nothing," the harm from these leaks were the revelations that peoples' votes for Bernie didn't matter and the media will print whatever the DNC tells them to, followed by the media carefully avoiding any actual reporting on the leaks. You saw this on Slashdot where they ignored the important, meaty submissions and posted fluffy crap like the "food groups" of VP candidates (they were sorted by race & sex, with Bernie off by himself in the special group), never mind that we had other leaks showing Tim Kaine was always going to be the VP pick in a quid pro quo arrangement and the entire exercise was a farce where they went through a dance to make it look legitimate.

    I mean, just look at how pathetic the media has become:

    “Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I f**ked up anything,”
    - Politico reporter Glenn Thrush via the Podesta dump

    Do you really expect journalism when we have pathetic hacks like this doing our reporting? I do more actual journalism than this and I have a real job and write comments whenever I'm bored or can't sleep.

  10. Since I don't see anyone else linking to it... by dbreeze · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...here's the most likely answer...
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

    When you run an operation so corrupt and dirty that it pisses off your own people, you get outed...

    --
    When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
  11. Re:"Suggesting" ... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Except that what the unnamed source said that an unnamed source connected with the CIA is stating is that Russia broke into both the DNC and RNC, but only choose to release the info from the DNC.

    There, fixed that for you. Except that the FBI, official and named sources, mind you investigated the RNC's servers and found no evidence that they were hacked.

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  12. Re:"Suggesting" ... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    The emission of the DNC emails is not nearly as concerning to me as the omission of the data stolen from the RNC.

    Except that the RNC was never hacked, so they didn't have any stolen data to release.

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  13. Re:"Suggesting" ... by sexconker · · Score: 1, Informative

    So because the CIA got Irak wrong (under a republican administration, by the way) they forever only tell lies & nonsense generated by incompetents?

    Yup. That was the only flub in the history of the CIA. They've never been involved in huge fuckups or covert plots against the American citizenry.

  14. Re:"Suggesting" ... by _KiTA_ · · Score: 3, Informative

    No evidence? She literally used Bleachbit on her server after being supoenaed and told to not delete anything. If she was literally anyone else she would be in jail right now. 30,000+ counts of destruction of evidence.

  15. Re:"Suggesting" ... by Rei · · Score: 3, Informative

    I seem to recall much information from the intelligence community in the run up to Iraq II which laid out the case as to what they knew..

    This seems to be the go-to talking point these days. It's also 100% wrong. The CIA's conclusion was that it could not establish solid connections (either for or against) between Iraq and al-Qaeda or Iraq and WMDs. The Bush administration's response was to create the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon to "reassess" the intelligence (basically, to make up whatever the hell they wanted). The CIA got it right; the Bush administration deliberately distorted to to pass their agenda.

    --
    Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
  16. Re:"Suggesting" ... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Informative

    FAKE NEWS ALERT!

    Seriously dude, words mean things. Why is is that fucking everyone who tries to dismiss fake news doesn't seem to understand either the words "news" or "fake. The news is:

    "White house supports claim putin blah blah blah"

    Did the white house say that?

    Yes, the white house did say that, ergo the news is not fake.

    Is the white house mistaken? That's irrelevant to whether this is fake news or not.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.