Saturday, January 7, 2017

Larry Johnson — The Big Lie on Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections

Now take a look at one of the “Judgments” from today’s disgraceful report:
  • We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
Ignore the terrible writing for a moment and focus instead on the curious last sentence. Why did the CIA and FBI have “HIGH” confidence while NSA is only at “MODERATE?” The answer is simple–there is no concrete evidence backing this up. It is nothing more than subjective judgment.
When I was an analyst I had to be very clear in ensuring my reader (i.e., the President) would know what was a fact based on sources and what was a judgment or opinion. If you read through the entirety of this DNI Assessment you will not find one shred of actual evidence tying showing that Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.” There is no evidence. That is why the entire report repeats the phrase, “WE ASSESS.” That is intel speak for opinion....
No Quarter
The Big Lie on Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections
Larry C. Johnson | CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm with expertise combating terrorism and investigating money laundering, formerly Deputy Director in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (1989-1993, and CIA operations (1984-1989)^

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