How Russian intelligence officers interfered in the 2016 election

Most legal sources never expected Russian entities to present to the US court system for trial. However, the Internet Research Agency and Concord, LLC, both cited in the indictment, did.

During the trial, presiding Judge Friedrich threatened the DOJ and Mueller attorneys with contempt for stating that both IRA and Concord LLC were affiliated with the Russian government, which was never proven. “By attributing the conduct to ‘Russia’- as opposed to Russian individuals or entities—the report suggests that Concord’s internet activities]were undertaken on behalf of, if not at the direction of the Russian government which was never proven,” the judge wrote (United States District Court 2019). The government then denied in court that it ever alleged Concord worked for the Russian government, although it was clearly in the grand journey document.

"Russia interfered in the election” became an established truth of the mainstream press and expressing any skepticism was labeled a “conspiracy theory.” Even after an attorney representing the Department of Justice admitted that the Russian government had nothing to do with the internet troll farm case, Robert Mueller in his report and testimony continued to state the opposite was true.

In the aftermath of the election, Facebook was widely reported as hosting a lethal disinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton. In its "white paper" on the election, Facebook revealed that 56 percent of "ad clicks" for the Russian ads were after the US presidential election. Facebook stated the alleged group of Russian hackers that hijacked the US presidential election, spent about $100,000 on 3,000 ads over two years, from mid-2015 to mid-2017. Of those 3,000 ads, 750 were never shown to anyone. That leaves 120 - 150 geographically targeted ads that ran in 2016 during the election season that could conceivably influence voters. Most of the ads dealt with sowing discord in American culture and institutions rather than targeting or promoting individual candidates in the election (Stamos 2017).

In the lead-up to and during the 2018 midterms, attackers compromised the email accounts of four top NRCC aides, consultants and operatives, surveilling their correspondences—totaling thousands of messages—for months. Considering the losses the GOP suffered in the midterms, this should have garnered some attention from the media coonsidering how much air time and innuendo was given the 2016 DNC attack (Newman 2018). However, crickets.

This does not mean there are not some real concerns about what transpired in the 2016 election, only that the coverage and assessment were, for the most part, of a partisan nature. I am concerned about the involvement of the espionage infrastructure and the full weight of the US govt's intelligence community being brought to bear against a private citizen running for elective office, no matter their political affiliation.

The proliferation of intelligence and national security leaks over the past few years in concert with an enabling media does not bode well for America's future. I think we could be approaching a propaganda state, in which case, America's future is dangerously unclear.

Newman, L. 2017. GOP Email Hack Shows How Bad Midterm Election Meddling Got. Wired, December 24, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/nrcc-email-hack-midterm-election-meddling/

Stamos, A. 2017. An Update On Information Operations On Facebook. https://about.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-operations-update/

United States Court for the District of Columbia. Sealed Document. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6185644/Sealed-Order.pdf

"Is there *anyone* under 80 who watches 60 Minutes?"

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I'm over 80 -- and I never watch 60 minutes.

TXnMA

There is an interview of Putin by Oliver Stone on a subject on YouTube.
He did just great explaining why Hillary lost.

The BS is deep in this one.

Yes it is. Whitaker said the Russians tried to give the documents to Roger Stone and that no attempts were made to hack the RNC.

As far as the hack goes, it wasn't a "genius" hack. They got into the DCCC system by phishing an administrator's password and then were able to work their way into the DNC via a VPN connection.

Chris Wallace on Fox is grilling LA Sen Kennedy now.

Wallace “ we all know Russia interfered in our 2016 election”. “All of our intelligence agencies said so”

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Chris Wallace could use an enema of the mouth.

Nah - the only reason I know it’s still on is because during football season it often runs a bit late and “God Friended Me” is on directly after it....

Chris Wallace could use an enema of the mouth.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

that would keep him happy