Robert Parry — US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia ‘Hack’

Long in inference and conjecture, short on evidence, as it none provided. Just more of the same. Same as "the Russians did it" on other incident like the downing of MH17 and the alleged "invasion" of eastern Ukraine. This doesn't like like making a case but like manufacturing consent for a fixed policy, specifically setting up the new president to be subservient to the deep state, molding public opinion against the new administration, and delegitimizing the incoming president. 

If that is the case, and many professional intelligence people think it is*, then this is real subversion of the democratic process and liberal governance.

Since the "evidence" is sealed behind a security wall, the public will never know the facts, and it will remain a matter of who one chooses to believe. Another breakdown of trust in the society.

Repeating an accusation over and over again is not evidence that the accused is guilty, no matter how much “confidence” the accuser asserts about the conclusion. Nor is it evidence just to suggest that someone has a motive for doing something. Many conspiracy theories are built on the notion of “cui bono” – who benefits – without following up the supposed motive with facts.

But that is essentially what the U.S. intelligence community has done regarding the dangerous accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a covert information campaign to influence the outcome of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump.

Just a day after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper vowed to go to the greatest possible lengths to supply the public with the evidence behind the accusations, his office released a 25-page report that contained no direct evidence that Russia delivered hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta to WikiLeaks.

The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.

But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”

Consortium News
US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia ‘Hack’

Robert Parry

*William Binney, Larry Johnson, Patrick Lang, Ray McGovern have spoken out about US intelligence politicization.