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Pretty Clear GRU's Goal Was To Weaken a Future Clinton Presidency, Former Facebook CSO Says (zdnet.com)
Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt tech conference this week, former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos reflected on his time dealing with fake news and Russian intelligence interference ahead and after the 2016 US presidential election. From a report: The former Facebook security head said "it [was] pretty clear the GRU's goal was to weaken a future Hillary presidency. Putin has a [you know, it's been well-documented] like a personal antipathy towards her and believes that she was behind the protests against him in the 2012 Russian election, and so, the GRU activity was specifically focused on weakening her."
"I think it was less about actually electing Trump," Stamos added. "I find it unlikely that the Russians are better than Nate Silver at predicting elections." What kind of attacks could we expect in the near future? Per Stamos, "Throwing an election one way or another is going to be very difficult for a foreign adversary but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
"I think it was less about actually electing Trump," Stamos added. "I find it unlikely that the Russians are better than Nate Silver at predicting elections." What kind of attacks could we expect in the near future? Per Stamos, "Throwing an election one way or another is going to be very difficult for a foreign adversary but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
Install a weak president.
Fair Question: Did Clinton meddle in the Russian election?
but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
"Chaos"?
First of all, we would know that how, lol? Aren't they all chaos?
In any case, real elections are "chaos" ... in real elections there's real potential for the voters to actually choose something different, whether the elites like it or not.
That feels like "chaos" to the people who think that only one party should rule and that any other parties are to be kept around only for appearances sake.
Was I the only one that had to look up "GRU" and "IRA Troll Farm" because neither the article nor summary explained it?
From Wiki: The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russia... and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU... is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation ... whose heads report directly to the president of Russia.
The Internet Research Agency... is a Russian company, based in Saint Petersburg, engaged in online influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests.
Russia has a somewhat competent analysis of USA electoral politics. Trump was a bad candidate for president. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, matched the standard political calculus for a presidential candidate. Obama was also a good candidate.
There is no such thing as a popular vote. Journalists can go out and collect dissimilar numbers to add up, but the total is not some 'popular vote.' That's similar to trying to add up 'interception recoveries' to determine the winner of a football game.
Not diplomat or political scientist, meaning Stamos opinion on why Russia is about as good as yours.
Personally I think Russia would have been sowing discord regardless Clinton, Trumps behaviour, narcissism and lack of diplomacy make him a particularly good stooge for attempting to create turmoil in western nations. See also brexit.
Either way its THE SYSTEM that's at fault. EITHER ONE WAS DESTINED TO BE THE WORST PRESIDENT OF THE USA.
You elect Clinton she will go onto be a pig at the trough of the military industrial complex. You elect trump he will go onto be a pig at the trough of the military industrial complex.
Russia is unimportant to the outcome of the election. Mountains of collusion with Cambridge Analytics, Israel, Oligarchs in the USA like Robert Mercer. Facebook is subservient to the US military industrial complex now anyway, a few meme's here and there don't swing an election its utter bulls**t.
Then that empirically pales in comparison to a president (Obama) that did nothing for the middle class except destroy it with junk economics after the GFC in 2008. Lethargic voters who voted obama 2 times and got nothing didnt bother to turn up on election day there's the empirical cause effect of trump winning.
... policy documents
The crazy Left is frustrated that their crazy theories keep failing so they keep coming up with even crazier ones.
And then they trot out unqualified opinion by random, yet important-sounding person.
And use that opinion as "smoking gun" proving their crazy theories.
Hint: there's no evidence or allegations that FB security was breached by GRU or other Russian agencies. The ads were bought fair and square.
Therefore the transactions are wholly outside of the "security head" domain. So who cares what he thinks on the issue.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
Remember the debates? Hillary was firm in wanting a no-fly zone in Syria. This would have led to direct conflict between USAF and Russian AF. It could have easily broken out into a big shooting war. Heck, I get the idea that a lot of people in DC (the unelected government, so-called deep state) would have greatly desired that. World War II hero and former U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) once observed, in a different context: "There exists a shadowy government with ... its own fundraising mechanism."
Also remember, just before the inauguration, that US armored brigade landed and the jokes wrote themselves? Obama just sent tanks into Poland, that sort of thing. They then traveled to the Russian border? That was Hillary's big stick. Plant a bunch of troops near them and then start shit in Syria. But she wasn't elected, and they just did some training and then left. Peace broke out instead.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
... And there's still a ridiculous amount of derangement. Hilldog was a bad candidate who few outside the far left liked. She was caught meddling in her own party's process to boot Bernie. She tried pretending that destroying evidence on her personal email server was an innocent mistake. Worst of all, she pretended to be a saint when she is definitely not. That wolf in sheeps clothing never sat well with me. Look up Hitchens thoughts on her for more things to be unsettled about. Now 2 years later, uncountable hours have gone into trying to shift the blame. When will the Dems admit it was a mistake to have her as the candidate?
The press pushed and promoted a landslide Hillary victory and they convinced everyone. I know this will be modded down, but the Democrats are doing exactly what the Russians wanted better than the Russians could imagine.
It's like saying "what's this CIA abbreviation?"........ this is why the americans get called ignorant :)
Skimmed the article and still had no idea. Journalism fail at all levels. Maybe I'm old but when I see IRA I think about assholes in England planting bombs.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Just don't cross Putin or you'll get eaten by the GRU, as several of his enemies and critics have learned.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So..the Russians wanted to make sure that the US elected a president that the majority of the country would hate. Guess they can still claim "mission accomplished".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The closer an election is, the more a small effect will tip the result. The 2016 election turned out to tilt on 80,000 votes in three states, a very small margin in an election in which 57.6 million people voted.
The Russian campaign contributions had a significant advantage; they didn't even have a need to pretend to truth or accuracy or morality. They were aiming for disruption of America by any means necessary, with no concern for collateral damage.
(and note that your figure of "$100K in ads" is the documented part of the advertising budget for their interference-- we don't have any idea of the full extent of it, but that is only the barest tip of the iceberg, not even including the money spent on trolls and fake grass-roots organizations. The full extent was a lot higher than that, and we have no idea how much higher.)
Sorry, no. She doubled Trump up. Even if you add money for Russian interference.
Literally places with 98% turnout voting 98% for Putin, there is no "election", no real vote as such, and so no, USA does not interfere in Russian "elections".
It did not bribe opposition candidates either with promises of lucrative deals to save their cash flow problems and over leveraged debt.... essentially because the only real opposition candidate was locked up during the election and banned from standing.
They did not hack Putin's email and selectively leak them, because Putin uses typewriters.
They didn't conspire with opposition press to publish those leaks because Russia does not have free press.
Yes, I read "IRA" as meaning either "Individual Retirement Account" or "Irish Republican Army". https://acronyms.thefreedictio...
Russians want a weak and divided US. Putin couldn't care less about who is running the nation. Did they interfere with our election? Maybe. Did illegals criminally vote in our elections after Obama asked them to? Did the Clintons and the DNC pay millions for the so-called research that led to Russia dossier? Yes. Did Clinton have her billionaire foreign friends funding her campaign? Yes. But I guess direct foreign interference doesn't count if the Democrats were behind it. I think Democrats need to understand that people are starting to notice all the BS they are preaching. You can't have it both ways....unless your a Democrat. People got tired of that and elected a clown over a corrupt political cult of blatant liars and criminals. Normal people don't like SJW types, hypocrites and habitually outraged race baiters. At some point you start to notice how they flood social media and every forum with their trash propaganda. Even slashdot seems to get hit constantly.
It's not per se that the media "promoted" a landslide Clinton victory; it's more that they assumed a landslide Clinton victory. In fact, what they did was give Donald Trump tons of free media coverage-- about five billion dollars worth, by some estimates.
http://www.mediaquant.net/2016/11/a-media-post-mortem-on-the-2016-presidential-election/
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13896916/1/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/12/assessing-a-clinton-argument-that-the-media-helped-to-elect-trump/
Seriously, can't tell if you're repeating fake propaganda because you believe it or being paid for it.
The lies and misreporting from the left and the deep state continues to show what a bad state of affairs America was/is in.
They're not only creating election turmoil, they're amplifying and exploiting the issues we have in this country. I believe they are partly to blame for all the left-right anger and hate.
Both sides spent roughly a billion dollars on their campaigns.
False. Hillary's campaign cost about double what Trump's did. And that ignores all the backdoor bullshit with the media, the DNC, and the Clinton Foundation.
If Russia is after "discord" and a "weakened president" why are all of the #Resistance types so eager to help them accomplish those goals?
Michael Moore showed up at one of the Russian rallies, we have "art" of celebrities with President Trump's severed head, some crazy dude crashed into Fox news the other day screaming about "treason," another crazy dude tried to shoot up a Republican Congressional baseball game, Ron Paul was assaulted by his neighbor.
Why is the entire mainstream media and Democratic party working to help Russia's goals, instead of trying to work with him to find things we can agree on or reasonable compromises?
It is likely to eaten by a GRU(e)
Same reason Cheney isn't. The DNC and RNC have 'mutually assured destruction' level dirt on each other.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Trump asked them for copies of Hillary's emails. A server that was already down at the time.
They didn't deliver. If the Ruskys wanted Trump elected, they would have delivered all the emails.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Putinist sock-puppets are all over Slashdot like flies on shit.
Fairly sure of it, because normal geeks normally don't have strong opinions on things that Putin's Russia hates.
When I'm foolish enough to try and state some home truths, it gets really, REALLY obvious. I've been called "pidar", "urod", and "CIA spy and shill" repeatedly, if I challenge the pro-Putin narrative hard enough it's ridiculous. I've seen enough Russian false-equivalency, whataboutism and outright lies to melt a normal person's brain.
I know that Slashdot leans technolibertarian -- and it's known that technolibertarians have been targeted hard by the Putinist propagandists in their efforts to smear and discredit the NSA and normal spycraft in general (but of course, Russia and China gets a free pass).
While issues around liberty and privacy ought to be taken seriously -- don't take anything you read about teh ebil NSA at face value. Malevolent actors are TRYING to turn you us against ourselves.
Was anything released incorrect? Were the emails false, for instance? Was her insulting a sizable portion of the country Russia's doing? Was Russia behind her corrupting the DNC primary process?
Is Russia's biggest crime, in fact, that it did the job the media might have done in past generations? Today's media was all about helping Clinton to the presidency by almost any means necessary, and let me tell you; ironically that hurt Clinton more than it helped.
Trump just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude to get the job ( loud, amoral and full of shit ).
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Constant attacks are worth five billion?
People must hate 'the media' more than I thought.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Quadafee was also fucking insanely rich. Didn't help when it came time for the knife enema.
At that level they measure wealth in 'power'. But if they lose, they die.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So the callousness in which you treat the general population is quite amazing. If the two candidates where identical, you might be right. But this was black vs. white. There was no common ground between the two. If you are saying that 100K of advertising is all it takes to tip someone from black to white, then our "election" process is beyond repair. Really, people made the opinion early on, and disregarded information based on their bias.
This fantasy world that people live in where obviously the Russians are the ONLY reason Trump is president is amazing. Admitting Hillary was a flawed candidate would really help the democrats swing centrists, but instead they prefer to go off the rails.
--WooooHoooo--
Everyone's so scared of the big, bad GRU now.
PERCEPTION: invincible super-spies who can find anybody, kill anybody and hack anything on a whim.
REALITY: barely-competent two-bit thugs, who continually blow their operations and cause problems for their leadership through incompetence, mindless aggression and poor judgement. Scumbags who, if they weren't working for Putin, would be extorting shopkeepers and raping hookers in St Petersburg.
Fake News Sharing In US Is a Rightwing Thing, Says Oxford Study
"I find it unlikely that the Russians are better than Nate Silver at predicting elections."
Nate Silver likely never left his basement and the pollsters that collected his data likely didn't venture past the local Starbucks anywhere they went... or just did some bullshit sentiment analysis on social media...
I find it unlikely that they would know anything about what actual people think.
Then Hillary leaked that the russians had time travel, so that trumps request could be accomplished. She has since twice other claimed that the Russians had time travel.
Then you had the progressives claiming that the Koch brothers had cheap matter transporters that could move oil over 1000 miles at a cheap price.
And you have liberal environmentalists claiming that motor companies are holding back fully electric vehicles, perpetual motion home generators, and other similar things that would totally remove the need of fossil fuels.
What we need to for corry booker to take a stand and release all this hiddle classified stuff him and his followers exist. He has already played Sparticus for a fund raising video why can't he release material that actually be useful to have?
No, more accurately, Trump won because of the majority of people, who disliked both candidates, a LARGER fraction disliked Trump slightly less than they disliked Clinton. But you know, that whole electoral college BS thing. When elected, Trump was the most disliked president elect in history. If Clinton had been elected, she would also have been the most disliked president elect in history.
They were co-opted by the religious nuts and the organization became worse than useless. Pretty much SOP for popular R movements.
Of course, the people are still out there.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
...In fact, what they did was give Donald Trump tons of free media coverage-- about five billion dollars worth, by some estimates. http://www.mediaquant.net/2016/11/a-media-post-mortem-on-the-2016-presidential-election/
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Constant attacks are worth five billion?
Getting his name in the media, the media covering his speeches, the media covering his campaign rallies (while ignoring the comparable events from other candidates), the media covering his talking points-- yep, turns out to be worth about five billion dollars worth of free publicity.
The media covered him because he was outrageous. And he used that.
He seems to be following the model of George M. Cohan: "I don't care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right."
Or, to quote another luminary, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."
Russian geopolitics are pitch black.
On top of that the vast majority of the media companies endorsed Hillary Clinton. 500 newspapers endorsed Hillary Clinton, while only 28 endorsed Trump and an additional 30 newspapers, including USA Today, were outright against Trump.
But the big question is: why did the GRU know where to spend their (up to) $100,000 (including post electoral expenditures), while Hillary Clinton and her staff did not? Probably because it is all an excuse for a very poor performance, after all the money she spent and all the media support she gained.
A lot of Canadian veterans succeeded in getting rid of the last PM and his MPs, and will do it again if need be.
Of course, that's not a foreign attack on another nation, but using techniques we learned in counter-terrorism ops and our local knowledge, and it's all perfectly legal.
You don't have to hack things to change them. Hacking is what you do when you're not connected to the systems already.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You mean the media colluding with the Clinton campaign to promote a pied piper that they thought was the weakest candidate so that Clinton would continue with the coronation unimpeded?
Both my parents voted for Trump and both are starting to cognitively decline. When asked to explain how the values they instilled in me can be reconciled with Trump, there is no rational answer. However, they both like the idea of removing welfare and lowering their taxes without realizing or caring that they are pulling up the ladder after themselves. The good school funding they enjoyed in their youth is a shambles now. How can this be described as anything other than pulling up the ladder?
There was more than one goal to the Russian interference. Undermine Clinton, help Trump, sow FUD, test weaknesses that can be exploited again in the future...those are a few off the top of my head.
If you're modded down, it will be because you're stupid, not because people don't like what your'e saying.
The press didn't promote a landslide, the statistics favored an electoral landslide for Hillary. The error margins were concerning in the midwestern states that ultimately cost her the election, but there was a reasonable assumption that that not *every single one of those states* would fall to the R side of the error bars.
That would be like the Cubs winning the World Series. Possible, but extremely unlikely.
But hey, guess what happened.
The unlikely happened in both cases that year. No one was pushing a narrative, you just don't fucking understand statistics.
People were so fed up with Bush Jr. they were even willing to elect the candidate most different from Bush Jr.
The hysteria is almost palpable.
And here are not only more unsubstantiated claims against Russia, but also more unsubstantiated claims within unsubstantiated claims :
"The former Facebook security head said "it [was] pretty clear the GRU's goal was to weaken a future Hillary presidency. Putin has a [you know, it's been well-documented] like a personal antipathy towards her and believes that she was behind the protests against him in the 2012 Russian election, and so, the GRU activity was specifically focused on weakening her."
Like in Star Trek III The Search for Spock when the Klingon gunner is ordered to shoot to disable but accidentally destroys the Federation vessel
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
How do you know she was media endorsed, they only said she had IIRC 95% chance of winning the EC.
All this conjecture about something you have no direct knowledge about. Seems disingenuous, and pardon my bluntness, and ignorant.
Show us the ads. Simple, easy, honest, the right thing to do.
And yet, no one who has access will do it. And no one who is really invested telling everyone they know the facts will show their work.
Funny, if it walks like bullshit, and talks like bullshit, and smells like bullshit itâ(TM)s the first thing you want to wallow in and throw at everyone else.
If the press was doing their job they would get the whole list and publish it. If Congress was doing their job they wouldnâ(TM)t require it be made public. If Facebook were doing their job they would post links to it on their site and make us watch ads to see it and track all of our behavior before, during, and after we read any of it.
If The People were doing their job they would demand to see them. So curious that no one is doing their job, and no one is talking about it. What the fuck is wrong with everyone?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The press didn't promote a landslide, the statistics favored an electoral landslide for Hillary. The error margins were concerning in the midwestern states that ultimately cost her the election, but there was a reasonable assumption that that not *every single one of those states* would fall to the R side of the error bars.
That would be like the Cubs winning the World Series. Possible, but extremely unlikely.
But hey, guess what happened.
The unlikely happened in both cases that year. No one was pushing a narrative, you just don't fucking understand statistics.
You are delusional. If you think the press didn't promote a Hillary landslide then you are the only person to think that. All of them did. If your memory needs refreshing, head over to youtube and watch the early results on election night.
The only errors in the midwestern states were Hillary believing the hype. The overwhelming MSM declaring a Hillary landslide is what kept Hillary from campaigning in those states. That and her extremely poor health. Oh, which the MSM help cover up as well. Hillary was convinced by her own political machine that the blue wall was going to stay blue. So she went light on the campaigning. She's won the election already so being out there in public can only hurt her. Don't forget that she, like Trump, is an extremely polarizing figure. You know as well as I do that if the press & the polls were honest with Hillary and told her that she was in a dogfight, she would have campaigned more. Some states she NEVER visited because they were solidly blue and they polled solidly blue. How did they poll solidly blue? That's the press helping burying some things and promoting others. The press wanted Trump voters to think there was no way Trump could win so stay home.
Trump, on the other hand, campaigned his ass off. He flew to multiple SRO campaign rallies in different states daily. He worked for votes.
Don't forget the Bush tape that somehow was stored for 10 years but suddenly found it's way from NBC to Hillary's campaign. Yeah, tell me more how the MSM didn't push her election.
You speak of the election like it was a statistical anomaly, but it wasn't. Hillary had no clue why she wanted to be president. She provided the same answer Ted Kennedy did and it cost him as well. Trump, while just as polarizing as Hillary, made a connection with the voters, campaigned on good issues, and campaigned his ass off.
Why should Russia wage a conventional war with the USA, when it's considerable safer and cheaper to elect a puppet like Trump?
why did the GRU know where to spend their (up to) $100,000?
Enter Cambridge Analytica, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.
It's not per se that the media "promoted" a landslide Clinton victory; it's more that they assumed a landslide Clinton victory. In fact, what they did was give Donald Trump tons of free media coverage-- about five billion dollars worth, by some estimates.
You know why they gave Trump tons of media coverage? Because they wanted him to be the face of the Republicans. The media wanted Trump to be the nominee. Then they could swoop in with the Bush tape and secure the election.
The media ran every story they could promoting Hillary. The squashed every story they could that would hurt her. The MSM were active partisan participants in the elections.
Constant attacks are worth five billion?
People must hate 'the media' more than I thought.
The attacks didn't start until Trump was the nominee. The trouble is the media are a bunch of elitist snobs who have no personal connection with the voters.
Look at illegal immigrants
The media "Trump is an unhinged xenophobe and he hates immigrants. We're going to blast his position 24/7 to show what a bigot he is."
The public "Trump is right about illegal immigration."
Look at the wall
The media "Trump hates brown people and he wants to build a wall along the border. East Germany had a Berlin wall. Let's blast his position 24/7 to show what a bigot he is."
The public "Trump is right about the wall. We need to stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling."
Look at trade
The media "Trump is greedy and what to steal from poor people across the globe."
The public "Trump is right. We need to negotiate trade agreements that benefit both parties."
And so on.
No such thing. They thought she'd win and even contributed heavily for her. They owned her already. Remember the Uranium one deal? Look it up. Remember how they contributed at least 500K to her? Goes on and on. Obama even told Putin he would help him after the election, remember that too? Democrats have been working with the Russians for decades. That's well known and fact.
In regard of one sovereign power attempting to disrupt the internal structures of another foreign power, what would "collateral damage" look like? I mean, if it is damage somewhere in the target power (or in it's foreign relations, alliances, etc), then it's still damage, and in the direction intended.
I suppose that accidentally causing expensive damage - eg, an infrastructure hack causing some Sierra Nevada dams to be dumped, and San Francisco/ Silicon Valley flooded to complete destruction of prototypes and records - could qualify. But that's more of an equipment hack than trying to manipulate the target's politics.
I'm still wondering how much the GRU have spent on their attempt to break up the EU - again, it's being a spectacularly effective leveraging of investment. Got to give them their dues : they know how to manipulate people better than our own politicians and marketing professionals. Which should cause much soul-searching in both professions - as well as necromantic rites, to bring the souls back from the dungeons to which they've been consigned after being traded to the Elder Gods for power over humans.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Yes, transliteration/translation partly relys on phonics and partly on IQ to follow the humor...
Alex Stamos, Berkeley graduate, liberal politics. Computer security specialist. His views on Putin’s motivations are speculative. Putin attacked Trump as well as Hillary. The Steele Dossier was likely, in my opinion, produced by Russian government operatives. We know the agents working with Steele were Russian insiders. So the extrapolation is similar to what US Intelligence agencies came to understand. Putin’s goals weren’t anti-Hillary. They were to spread FUD ... and the liberals bought in hook line and sinker. Russia wants the focus turned away from them. Away from their internal and imperialistic actions. And so far it’s working. Both parties are point8ng fingers. The election rhetoric is so decisive and the atmosphere so charged that the work of running America is slowed ... Kavanaugh is a great example. Unanimously approved as a nominated federal judge. Sure, that’s not a Supreme Court Justice. But unanimous. Now the chairperson of the committee got three words into the opening statement and interrupted. And dozens of interruptions to the proceedings.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
What is "German", can you put a short explanation in parenthesis pls? :) I'm guessing you are either young or west-german. Ever heard of STASI btw ? No ? I don't expect every time CPU is written on slashdot a (CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT). News for nerds or news for newbs ? Make up your mind....
>There was no common ground between the two.
They both sucked.
First off, Russiagate is the dumbest conspiracy theory of all time. The bulk of it rests on the idea that Putin stole an election by....revealing factual details on how Hillary stole an election (democratic primary). The rest is generally so bad it is dispositive, like pointing to Twitter trolls that spent a few thousand dollars in a $9 billion election, including some of their ads that were placed after Trump was president elect.
Except this would play out just like that scene in Austin Powers. Dr. Evil Putin, or DEP for short, tells his minions about his new evil schemes, only for his henchmen to cough and tell him it's already happened:
Henchmen: "Ah, DEP, that has already happened. Americans, even members of her own party, think she is untrustworthy."
DEP: "Ok, lets spend a few thousand dollars on Tweets to sow discord."
Henchmen: "I don't know how to say this, sir....but have you been living under a rock? You've never heard of Rodney King? Republicans claim that the Clintons ran a heroin empire in Arkansas and ordered mob hits? Teabaggers that hung mannequins of Obama and burned him in effegy. America is DROWNING in discord, we don't have to lift a finger."