Re: "We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded.
All 17 agree, All 17 don't need to make a statement.
Unless you're willing to post a link where 13 are saying it's not true :mrgreen:
We can’t know what
any agency thinks or does not think until a statement is made. That's is the point.
We can evaluate the few public statements available.
Here is the transcript which brings more context to the purticular source of the Hillary statement:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...election-interference/?utm_term=.a2aa4f00f920
JAMES R. CLAPPER JR., FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE:
…the I.C. was a coordinated product from three agencies; CIA, NSA, and the FBI not all 17 components of the intelligence community. Those three under the aegis of my former office. Following an extensive intelligence reporting about many Russian efforts to collect on and influence the outcome of the presidential election, President Obama asked us to do this in early December and have it completed before the end of his term.
The two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies. They were given complete, unfettered mutual access to all sensitive raw intelligence data, and importantly, complete independence to reach their findings. They found that the Russian government pursued a multifaceted influence campaign in the run-up to the election, including aggressive use of cyber capabilities.
…These conclusions were reached based on the richness of the information gathered and analyzed and were thoroughly vetted and then approved by the directors of the three agencies and me.
…The classified version was profusely annotated, with footnotes drawn from thousands of pages of supporting material. The key judgments in the unclassified version published on the 6th of January were identical to the classified version.
…In conclusion, Russia's influence activities in the run-up to the 2016 election constituted the high water mark of their long running efforts since the 1960s to disrupt and influence our elections.
The key terms for skeptic here is “two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked”
As the counter-narrative has always been this involves cherry-picked intelligence like WMDs in Iraq and this statement supports these statements followed a known process which can produce politicalized intelligence. I have not seen the 1000 pages of evidence and can not tell you the accuracy of a classified report; I can tell you the public report makes unfounded assumptions and draws conclusions on sketchy methodology.
The fact remains, there is no known direct evidence that Wikileaks releases are connected with Russia, no one doubts the truth of the releases, there is zero evidence Russian hacked or swung the election(with the truth), and it is hard to believe these 24 analysts would have access to evidence which showed otherwise. Most of the release did more to help Bernie than Trump. They did not even have access to the computer systems or network that were "hacked". They have not named the individuals involved or motives other than indicted a known reality that Russia has a motive to promote Russian interests during the American elections. In fact the only damning evidence they could have come across was an inside mole, which is actually contradicted by clappers statement that the conclusions were annotated with footnotes drawn from thousands of pages of supporting material and other key intelligence term. Such words indicate the report'd conclusions were a guessimate based on patterns of behaviours and other circumstantial clues.
It’s might even be a good guess, however, one must explain why the change in Russian motives? Since 1960 it has always been to destabilize the public trust in its institutions such as with the RT efforts to give a voice to unconventional commentary like the libertarian presidential debates or raw feeds of political rallies. So why would they direct their efforts toward Democratic Party and not release Republican dirt? It’s completely out of character...not to mention isn't supported by the known facts.
You can assume Trump is in on it. Although, then you have to explain his motives and the method of how it actually helped him, which despite vast exploration in conspiracy theory has turned up a “nothing burger” to anyone with a ounce of skepticism.
Of course you could accept, that if the Obama administration & Hillary was willing to lie about the confidence and nature of the evidence: they are willing to put pressure to produce a report which fits their narrative before they leave a seat of power. A possibility which is well supported by facts as well as previous actions involving Hillary. After all I am using the very sources you claim disprove my skepticism to support my skeptical narrative ~ its not a good sign.
