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Here’s the real problem with the joint intelligence report on alleged Russian hacking: without the classified details, we ordinary citizens are supposed to take the breathless allegations, presented as “high confidence” intelligence judgments, on faith. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan are crossing their fingers and saying, “Trust us.” Since both are political appointees – Brennan in particular came directly out of the Obama White House, where he is believed to have orchestrated secret arms smuggling through Libya to Syrian rebels that led directly to the Benghazi disaster – excuse me if I remain skeptical....

Wikileaks announced a 9AM press conference on Monday morning to, quote, “respond to the CIA report on the US election”. Wikileaks readers were asked to tweet questions using the #AskWL hashtag on Twitter. The press conference was streamed live from the Ecaudorian embassy in London, via an audio feed on Periscope. Julian Assange slammed the recent report as a “press release”, stating that only about five pages of the report could be considered substantial content. “The real question is whether the Russians hacked the Democratic party with the intention of favoring Donald Trump,” Said Assange [Paraphrase]. “Even if you accept...

A Russian official on Friday argued that U.S. democracy was undermined by President Obama's administration and the media, not by Moscow's alleged hacking campaign. Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov offered his criticism following the public release of a U.S. intelligence report that accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating an effort to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process." "The U.S. democratic process was undermined not by Russia, but by the Obama administration and mass media, which supported [Hillary] Clinton over [President-elect Donald] Trump," Pushkov tweeted. "The danger to democracy is within U.S. itself," he added, arguing that Obama is...

The FBI has fired back at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over claims the bureau never asked to access servers that were reportedly breached by Russian hackers. In a statement, the FBI said the real problem was DNC foot-dragging: The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated. This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier. Earlier, DNC...

CrowdStrike, the third-party company relied upon by the FBI to make its assessment about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was financed to the tune of $100 million from a funding drive last year led by Google Capital. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party. On Thursday, a senior law enforcement official told CNN that the DNC “rebuffed” the agency’s...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump said in an interview Friday morning that the storm surrounding Russian hacking during the presidential campaign is a political witch hunt being carried out by his adversaries, who he said were embarrassed by their loss to him in the election last year. Mr. Trump spoke to The New York Times by telephone three hours before he was set to be briefed by the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement officials about Russian hacking of American political institutions. In the conversation, he repeatedly criticized the intense focus on the alleged cyber intrusions by Russia.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested at a congressional hearing Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump is disparaging the US intelligence community as he refuses to acknowledge Russia's role in election-related hacking. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, asked Clapper during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing who benefits from Trump "trashing the intelligence community" as he expresses skepticism about intelligence assessments that show Russia was involved in hacking Democratic Party organizations in an attempt to influence the election. Clapper said he is "apolitical" and cautioned against disparaging the intelligence community. "I think there is an important distinction here...

At a hearing today, Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana) today said it was “astounding” that anyone would question the credibility of our intelligence agencies.

The FBI did not look over the Democratic National Committee's servers before issuing a report that Russia had hacked the organization, according to a report published Wednesday evening. Other than the FBI, no federal agency has conducted an investigation into the DNC's email server since the incident was uncovered six months ago. "The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice's National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC's...

Damning emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman did not come from Russian hackers and the claim is being made to "delegitimize" Donald Trump, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview. Hannity sat down with Assange in London's Ecuadorian embassy, where the Australian native has been holed up for five years battling extradition to Sweden on unrelated charges. Part I of the interview is set to air Tuesday night at 10 p.m. on Fox News Channel's "Hannity." In excerpts released prior to airing, Assange is adamant that the hacked emails his organization released of Clinton...

Hannity interviews Assange inside Ecuadorian embassy... Developing... HANNITY: Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta's emails, can you tell the American people 1,000 percent that you did not get it from Russia or anybody associated with Russia? ASSANGE: Yes. We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party... Obama is trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate President.... Developing...

Some things never change. In full alignment with President Obama, the ever faithful war monger Senator John McCain calls for a declaration of war against Russia. …and if you disagree with him, well, you’re “a Hobbit“, or “a crazy“… or something. (Via Reuters) […] Republican John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Friday that Russia must face a penalty for the cyber attacks and that is was possible to impose many sanctions. “When you attack a country, it’s an act of war,” McCain said in an interview with the Ukrainian TV channel “1+1” while on a...

There’s no standing allegation by U.S. officials that the Russians (or anyone else) “hacked” into our elections system or altered vote counts. So what are the allegations and facts as we know them? The FBI and DHS released a brief joint report Thursday describing “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity.” It doesn’t include forensic proof of Russian government involvement in hacking efforts, but the administration is rushing a detailed, classified report to be delivered, at President Obama’s request, prior to President Trump taking office January 20. The joint report can be summarized this way: •The U.S. believes two hacking groups tied to...

Cyberwar: President Obama, living up to his promise, has hit Russia with sanctions for hacking the U.S. election. We're all for protecting America's information grid. But the timing and Obama's reasoning for the actions raise serious questions about the real motivation. "All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions," President Obama said from his vacation in Hawaii. "Such activities have consequences." He then announced sanctions, including giving 35 Russian intelligence officials 72 hours to leave the country. He also levied sanctions against a number of high officials of Russia's two main spy services, the GRU and FSB, along with companies...

Thursday on MSNBC, while reporting on a phone-in White House background briefing with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department about President Barack Obama’s newly announced sanctions on Russia for hacking during the 2016 American presidential election, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said the Obama administration is taking steps to “box in” President-elect Donald Trump so the sanctions are not easily reversible.

The Obama administration announced sanctions on Thursday against Russia and released a report that stated that the Russian government deployed computer hackers to attack the Democratic Party’s computers. Follow Link to diagram

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., thinks the Obama administration was justified in retaliating Thursday against Russia with sanctions for interfering with U.S. institutions. But he said it should’ve been done long ago. Far from a full-throated endorsement of Obama’s actions, Ryan’s statement condemned the commander in chief for eight years of what he considers “ineffective foreign policy” that left the United States more vulnerable than it was when he took office in 2009. Nevertheless, Ryan agreed that Russia is a threat to global security. “Russia does not share America’s interests. In fact, it has consistently sought to undermine them, sowing...

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote. Russia at first pledged, darkly, to retaliate, then backed off. The Russian press today is even reporting that Vladimir Putin is inviting "the children of American diplomats" to "visit the Christmas tree in the Kremlin," as...

Two notorious Russian hackers were fingered by the FBI for playing starring roles in meddling in the U.S. election. Evginey Mikhailovich Bogachev, 33, and Aleksey Alekseyevich Belan, 29, are reported to have made millions by selling financial information they obtained through hacking. Both men have been wanted by the FBI for years but because Russia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S., they remain beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The naming and shaming comes in the wake of President Barack Obama launching economic and political sanctions against Russians involved in the hack.

Against the backdrop of a sanctions announcement, President Obama’s administration has released a Joint Analysis Report claiming to outline the details of Russia’s involvement hacking into targeted political data base or computer systems during the election. Except it doesn’t. Not even a little. The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” (full pdf below) is pure nonsense. It outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor. This might as well be a report blaming Nigerian fraud phone solicitors for targeting U.S. phone...