US senators: WikiLeaks 'likely knew it was assisting Russian intelligence influence effort' in 2016 Dem email leak

The 2016 hacking of the Democratic Party's email system – and subsequent leaking of its messages – was personally ordered by Vladimir Putin and aided by Julian Assange, according to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. A just-released volume [PDF] from the panel's dossier on Russia's efforts to meddle in that year's …

[Snake]

Interestingly,

while El Reg, NYT, Reuters, WaPo, Bloomberg and others point out the connections, Faux News spent their time pointing out Trump's "innocence"

https://web.archive.org/web/20200818163721/https://www.foxnews.com/

And Brits wonder WHY Trump's followers seem to be in a constant state of denial. Because "unjustified credence" seems to apply when the facts are proven later ("irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling") but they turn out to be inconvenient.

[teknopaul]

Re: Interestingly,

But what I don't get is how did the Russians know that everything would go titsup if the Trumpster was in charge? What was it they knew that the Republiclan party did not?

[DryBones]

Re: Interestingly,

They knew he was a narcissistic megalomaniac with delusional tendencies, and so kept him well fed with praise, flattery, conspiracy theories, and childish memes.

Anyone else that had seen him for a while knew what he was, the Republicans just gaslit themselves into thinking those were all good and desireable things.

Everyone else knew just how this would go, and tried to warn folks, but no, they were sure they knew best.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Interestingly,

When I spoke to my yankside friends after the '16 election most of them (wether republickon or demoprat)were much of the opinion of "Trump is a new guy with no real ties to any previous history in washington, lets see what he does"

within 30 days, most of them were pretty much "impeach the bastard.. lets get an adult in the oval office"

And what my truely republican friends cannot believe is just how much that party has rolled over and basically died for trump. which is rather sad since they're now choosing to vote democrat now just to get rid of trump.

[Blackjack]

Re: Interestingly,

Even they have some limits, if everyone could vote the current USA president wouldn't get more than 40% of votes. Unfortunately the USA voting system is... rigged. Even so... the only president that has done almost as bad as him on dealing with this pandemic is the Brazil's president and he is a fan of the current USA president.

[EnviableOne]

Re: Interestingly,

I would argue Boris has done a worse, if not just as bad a job, if you look at the relative size of the country until peru spiked recently and depending on which of the 3 "Offical" deaths figures you use (ONS,NHS-old,NHS-new) then the UK has had more deaths per population than everyone else.

61.93 per 100k (as of yesterdays official figures) compared to USA 52.48, Irish 35.93 and German 11.10

while the test positivity rate has recovered from its early high, the infection morbity rate(deaths/cases) is still at 12.96% when the baseline rate is somewhere around 3% so there are a lot of cases that have happened without being detected.

[Blackjack]

Re: Interestingly,

Imagine if you will a president so out of reality and inside their own anus that insists that that cononavirus is "Just a cold" while also wearing a face mask while saying it. And that has handled the cononavirus so badly it made their country only second to the USA in coronavirus cases and deaths... at least for a while since the numbers keep changing.

That's Brazil's president.

[Graham Cobb]

Re: Interestingly,

I don't think Boris has done a good job (on anything!), but you can't just compare death per population numbers, unfortunately.

I am no epidemiologist but it is obvious that population density distributions and variances make a massive impact, as do weather, poverty and societal culture. For example, the proportion of the population living in cities presumably has a much more than linear effect (I would guess about an N-squared impact, due to network effects) - and the UK has a higher proportion of people living in cities than Ireland or the US does, for example. On the other hand, I would expect Germany to be comparable to the UK.

Personally I find the "percentage increase in deaths" figures to be the most meaningful of the easy to calculate numbers. By that, I mean the "excess deaths" divided by the "normal expected deaths". That way countries which normally have higher levels of deaths (whether due to climate, poverty, way of life, population density or whatever) are recognised as expecting higher numbers of excess deaths.

[OldSoCalCoder]

Clueless

I started reading this 966 page Senate intelligence report and kinda got stumped on page 6.

'Manafort hired... Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer.'

Not 'is believed to be', not 'is allegedly connected to', but 'is a Russian intelligence officer.' Both parties agree to this fact.

Manafort 'directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnic' while serving in Trump's 2016 campaign.

Now here's the part I'm confused about.

'The Committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data... with Kilimnik'.

Ya, that's got me stumped too. I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone working for Trump would be passing info on the upcoming election to a Russian intelligence agent who was actively working on orders from Putin to interfere with the 2016 US elections to the benefit of the Trump campaign.

I'm just clueless.

[DryBones]

Re: Clueless

I imagine wording had to be agreed on, and the more of these sorts of unfortunate conclusions got drawn the more the R's got nervous. So some had to be watered down if they were going to be included at all...

[veti]

Re: Clueless

You can make what inferences you like, but the committee's job was to report on what it actually has evidence of. If Manafort never talked about it or wrote down his reasoning - and why would he? - then it seems pretty likely, there is no evidence on this issue.

[OldSoCalCoder]

Re: Clueless

That's the problem. I read this and see trump guilty of collusion between him and Russia in interfering with the election. The republicans read the very same facts (maybe altered, omitted some) and say 'see, trump wasn't proven guilty'.

Wasn't proven guilty isn't the same as proven innocent. This doesn't prove that trump had no idea what was going on.

(I really hate double negatives but I don't know how to say it without them.)

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Clueless

And the D's may have been a bit nervous. And the evidence may have been... questionable.

But this mess highlights the risks of election interference and lobbying. The US may have evidence of.. something. For me, the highly dubious parts of this 'Russian' interference circle back to the origins. So Manafort's company (along with Black and Stone) had been working in Ukraine on Yanukovych's election campaign, which is where Kilimnik came in as a Ukrainian fixer. Who may or may not have some remaining ties to Russia.

Meanwhile, the US had been working to make sure Yanukovych didn't win, and the State Department apparently wasn't happy about Manafort's meddling and support for a pro-Russian Ukrainian presidential candidate. So the US should have some evidence of these murky goings on, but may not want to highlight it because a) it's classified and b) shows US election interference in Ukraine on both sides of that election.. Which didn't happed due to the Maidan 'peaceful protests' and a lot of dead Ukrainians.. And that mess happened during the Obama/Biden/Clinton era.

But that shit-show left a bunch of pro/anti Russia Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians looking to secure power, influence and of course cash, which is where Biden made himself a tad vulnerable for stating he made US aid payments conditional on having a Ukrainian anti-corruption investigator fired so they'd stop looking at Burisma, who just happened to employ Biden's son. But a bunch of anti-Russian Ukrainians who'd happily smear Russia for their own gain. Or just attempt to influence the US election because the Democrats had put Ukrainian politicians in power.

So to me, this mess seems strongly centred around Ukraine, not Russia.. Especially wrt aspects like why Clinton/DNC servers may have ended up there.

[JCitizen]

@Jellied Eel...

Exactly!

[A random security guy]

Can Manafort and Stone be tried

Manafort and Stone were supposed to have come clean on all things. If they did not disclose these crimes they will be tried. Hope they go to prison again.

Stone can't get a pardon again if trump loses the election :)

[dncnvncd]

Re: Can Manafort and Stone be tried

Stone didn't get a pardon. His sentence was commuted to time served. President Trump can pardon until the new President is sworn in. Traditionally, American Presidents grant pardons on the way out the door. Could it be that as Attorney General Barr and others begin finishing their investigations and proferring charges the Dems are trying to blunt the negative political effects?

[disgruntled yank]

Re: Can Manafort and Stone be tried

@dncnvncd

You are aware that the Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, and therefore any Senate committee, including--as the article mentions--this one?

[Version 1.0]

Re: Can Manafort and Stone be tried

You think so? But he lost the last election, Clinton received 2,870,000 more votes than he did.

[Sitaram Chamarty]

Is this news?

Maybe it's "proven" now, but to most sensible people with more than Fox News as a source this was kinda assumed to be true, wasn't it?

I certainly thought Assange had a direct hand in Hilary Clinton's defeat. (I don't live in the US. My impressions are formed only from various RSS feeds of normal newspapers (if they're not paywalled) and print newspapers in India).

[Alister]

Re: Is this news?

I think the telling point is that the committee in this instance is Republican led, and therefore even rabid republicans can't just pass this off as more Democrat propaganda.

[dncnvncd]

Re: Is this news?

Just so you know. President Trump defeated Sen. Rubio in the 2016 primary. There is bad political blood between the two. Sen. Rubio is considered a RINO in search of political playback.

[Claverhouse]

Re: Is this news?

'Little Marco'. And like the other scum Trump defeated in that Primary, Ryan, Walker, Crux, Fiorino, Kasich, old uncle Rand Paul and all, he is a lot more evil and right-wing than Trump.

Mind you, the same could be said of Hillary --- We Came, We Saw, He Died --- Clinton.

[Ordinary Donkey]

Re: Is this news?

Did you see the line-up at the Democrat convention this week?

Stars of the 1996 Republican convention brought back as Democrat guests of honour were just the beginning.

[disgruntled yank]

Re: Is this news?

RINO?

As far as anyone knows, Mario Rubio has been a Republican since he was old enough to vote. At what age did Donald Trump first declare himself a Republican?

[Ordinary Donkey]

Almost like there's an election...

... and they're scared Trump will try to pardon Julian in order to suck up to the voters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Almost like there's an election...

He has to be actually convicted of a federal crime first!

[willi0000000]

Re: Almost like there's an election...

not quite . . . see r. m. nixon pardon.

[mrobaer]

Re: Almost like there's an election...

Right. You can admit guilt to a federal crime and be pardoned for it, without being charged or convicted.

[dncnvncd]

Deja Vu all over

I am surprised that American senators are wasting their time to investigate a matter that is spurious at best and outright fabrication at worst in the middle of COVID-19. It seems the former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr(R)NC, was too busy day trading to forewarn anybody about SARS-2CoV. Thus the reliability of the Senate Intelligence Committee to address real concerns of the American citizenry is suspect. Investigating something that the Democrats said didn't happen and the FBI acquiesced in, just proves that Never Trumpers fear President Trump's re-election. To jog people's memory, Pvt. Manning was the person who revealed the super secret government internet codes. And Obama said Pvt. Manning was a hero and allowed the government to pay for a sex change as a federal prisoner, then released he-she. And people think Trump supporters are a bit daft. British subjects should be aware of what China has in store for the world once America is neutralized by a Biden Presidency by looking at what has happened in Hong Kong after the British returned it to China.

[OldSoCalCoder]

Re: Deja Vu all over

'Wasting their time...' when we have a pandemic. Ya, and an election two months away. Kinda important also. What part of this are you saying is 'spurious' or 'outright fabrication'? The fact that Russia interfered with the 2016 election? Or the fact that Trump knew this was going on and actively aided Putin/Russia to alter the outcome of the 2016 election.

If you can't see the first fact there's no point in going any further, I believe the moon is made of cheese also.

How does the sexual orientation of Manning have any bearing on this conversation? Or was that just thrown in to demonize Obama, democrats?

Trump escaped being proven guilty of using a foreign government to alter a US election. He also escaped being proven guilty of obstructing justice.

[_LC_]

Wow, US goons bombed this forum as usual

Hard to spot all the turds, when it's one big pile of...

.

https://www.google.com/search?fg=1&q=russia-gate+fbi+falsified+e-mails

FBI manipulated emails and omitted important information to get "Russia-gate" started.

.

And now the goons are trying really hard to spin it around again. :-P

[Anonymous Coward]

The Reg shows the truth

The Reg shows the truth that other media outlets didn't: "and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president,"

Much of the US media implied or directly accused parties of making up lies about Clinton, when all they did was expose the truth.

I don't care if it's Russians, little green men from mars, reporters or someone with a guilty conscious - exposing the truth is the right thing to do.

[JCitizen]

It seems to me..

That the last thing Julian would want to do is help Trump or any Republican to get into office. I figure his motivations were completely out of that particular subject area. He obviously had friendly relations with Russia, but that was only because he was a thorn in the side of the West, and Putin liked that.

I might as well repeat over again my belief that anything the Russians did, could not possibly change the minds of US voters. I saw no difference of opinions on social media between Democrats or Republicans, and I have friends in both parties. We all laughed at the fake news, but we published it on our walls so folks could get a good chuckle. Americans don't even believe the political advertisements, what makes any non US citizen think we believe the fake news or give it any more weight that other pandering publications? It is just natural to be skeptical when free speech makes so much lying possible. We US citizens know that you can't believe all you read or see on the news or anywhere else. It is just too easy to fabricate false realities. and we know that - we are not nearly as stupid as folks from other countries take us to be. Unfortunately the US news media loves to parade idiots from both sides of issues on TV and everyone from other countries think that is the way all Americans think. NOOooo! The news media only care about one thing, that that is ratings, ratings, ratings - anything else they could care less. Putting on a zoo every day is what they love! Trump was like a gold mine for them, and they could scream all day long every day and still get ratings for their side shows.