WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence.
But intelligence agencies have cautioned that they are uncertain whether the electronic break-in at the committee’s computer systems was intended as fairly routine cyberespionage — of the kind the United States also conducts around the world — or as part of an effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.
The emails were released by WikiLeaks, whose founder, Julian Assange has made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency. It is unclear how the documents made their way to the group. But a large sampling was published before the WikiLeaks release by several news organizations and someone who called himself “Guccifer 2.0,” who investigators now believe was an agent of the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence service.
The assessment by the intelligence community of Russian involvement in the D.N.C. hack, which largely echoes the findings of private cybersecurity firms that have examined the electronic fingerprints left by the intruders, leaves President Obama and his national security aides with a difficult diplomatic and political decision: Whether to publicly accuse the government of President Vladimir V. Putin with engineering the hack.
Is it just me? Is anyone else concerned that Russia might be attempting to manipulate our national election? It seems that all the emphasis to date has been to moan and groan over Debbie Wasserman-Schultz putting a weighted thumb on the process.
It’s very concerning to me that any foreign country would attempt to manipulate our elections. It is even more concerning that one of these countries is Russia. I guess Putin figures he would be better off with Trump in charge rather than Hillary.
I am more concerned about the potential that Russia, or some other party, has what was on Hillary’s private email server…and she should be too. There is a huge opportunity for blackmail, should she be elected, not to mention the classified material that was improperly and illegally stored. The DNC server leak is pure political theater.
Do you feel hacking the White House and the Pentagon were political drama?
Do we not have a presidential candidate who has spoken quite highly of Putin? Yeeesssssss.
That’s right, Steve. You have to be concerned about the “potential” because all those Congressional investigations and the FBI have not found a hack but they weren’t shy about sharing what they did find and we heard all about it again last week.
Trump is an authoritarian and so is Putin. Putin wants Trump to win. That’s what bothers me and it should bother you too.
@Steve Thomas
I think it should bother us all that Trump would be advocating any foreign govt. try to hack into anything in this country. Hacking costs this nation literally billions. I think his remark was treasonous. When will he learn to use his mouth with wisdom.
Jack and Anthony aka Jackson–go away. You are not welcome here. You come here to pester and troll. I don’t have time for you.
Worth hearing from Assange directly (mapping influence structure of both parties, and “pay to play”) and also the NYT coverage.
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0
Assange (starts 3:46) from Democracy Now!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axuJfX3cO9Q
He has no love for HRC, but his comments on the source and legacy DNC hacks is interesting.