Hillary Debunked: Intelligence Agencies Do Not Think Russia Hacked DNC

Fact checked
Hillary Clinton's claim that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies say that Russia are behind the DNC hack has been proven false.

In the third and final presidential debate Hillary Clinton said 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies claimed Russia is responsible for the damaging hacks on the DNC and Clinton campaign. She bashed Trump over the head with this claim, using it to suggest he was questioning the work of the entire nation’s intelligence staff.

On the night, fact checking sites and mainstream media outlets all announced that Hillary’s claim was true. Politifact,  USA Today, CNN, NBC

But they are wrong. What Hillary said was a lie.

First of all, only two intelligence entities – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have weighed in on this issue, not 17 intelligence agencies.

And even what the DNI and the DHS said was ambiguous about Russian involvement. An unclassified October 7, 2016 joint DNI-DHS statement on this issue said the hacks “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.

“Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europa and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

Saying we think the hacks “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts” is far short of saying we have evidence that Russia has been responsible for the hacks. Maybe high-level officials would have authorized them if Russian hackers were responsible, but the DNI and DHS statement did NOT say there was evidence Russia was responsible.

National Review reports:

My problem with the DNI/DHS unclassified statement is that it appeared to be another effort by the Obama administration to politicize U.S. intelligence. Make no mistake, U.S. intelligence agencies issued this unprecedented unclassified statement a month before a presidential election that was so useful to one party because the Clinton campaign asked for it. The Obama administration was happy to comply.

Clinton tried to defend the DNI/DHS statement by repeating the myth that U.S. intelligence officers are completely insulated from politics. She must think Americans will forget how the CIA crafted the politicized Benghazi talking points in 2011 and how SOUTHCOM intelligence analysts were pressured to distort their analysis of ISIS and Syria to support Obama foreign policy. And that’s just under the Obama administration.

Politicization of intelligence goes back decades, including such blatant efforts by CIA officers to interfere in the 2004 presidential election that the Wall Street Journal referred to it as “The CIA Insurgency” in an August 2004 editorial.

Maybe the Russians are behind the WikiLeak hacks of Democrat e-mails, possibly to influence the 2016 presidential election. I’m not convinced of this. I’m more concerned that these constant leaks of Democratic e-mails demonstrate that Democratic officials appear to have no understanding of the need for Internet security.

This makes me wonder if John Podesta’s e-mail password is “password.” These are the people Clinton will be giving senior jobs with high-level security clearances. That is the real security scandal that no one is talking about.

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry is a writer at The People's Voice. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@thepeoplesvoice.tv
Baxter Dmitry

4 Comments

  1. I knew she was lying when she said “17 intelligence agencies”. There are only 7. The Democrats are planning to steal the election, and they’ll probably get away with it. How much more corruption are we going to tolerate?

  2. First of all, they hacked in once, which gave them thousands of emails. They are letting them out little by little to influence the election. Come on…everybody knows that. That shouldn’t be up for discussion at this point. What should be is where do we draw the line? It’s OK to hack into someone’s private email because…? Because it suits us at the time? Not too long ago, everyone was aghast at Wikileaks, except the liberals at the time. Interesting how it gets switched out. There’s not much in the emails we didn’t already know anyway.

  3. Wow.. hey Dmitry (interesting that you have a name of Russian descent).. could your article have been any more biased against HRC? Or maybe you’re just another Soviet disinformation tool, hmm?

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