NPR has confirmed that intelligence officials say it’s now “quite clear” Russian hackers worked to tip the presidency in Donald Trump’s favor. Trump’s transition team has dismissed the assessment.
“What worries me is the extent to which this is an ongoing pattern — which, by the way, is the Russians’ pattern in other parts of the world.
And is that going to be the case in our elections? Four years from now, are we going to have the Democrats, the Republicans, the independents and the Russians? I mean, this is very serious stuff.”
— Senator Angus King, an independent senator from Maine
Deep down in its article, the Post notes — rather critically — that “there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.” Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.”
Most important of all, the more serious the claim is — and accusing a nuclear-armed power of directly and deliberately interfering in the U.S. election in order to help the winning candidate is about as serious as a claim can get — the more important it is to demand evidence before believing it. Wars have started over far less serious claims than this one.
Source: Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence — The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald