By Aaron Miller-
The conclusion that the CIA interfered in the U.S electons must be proved, and Obama has asked for a report before he leaves office next month.
The Washington Post, previously under fire for its admission of accidentally printing false information spilt from dodgy websites, have cited officials who claimed that individuals with connections to Moscow provided anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks with emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief and others.
Those emails are believed to have damaged Clinton’s electoral campaign and cost her the elections. Russians’ aim was to help Donald Trump win and not just undermine the US electoral process, the paper reported.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” the newspaper quoted a senior US official briefed on an intelligence presentation last week to key senators as saying. “That’s the consensus view.”
CIA agents told the lawmakers it was “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post.
Evidence
CIA officials are yet to provide hard evidence to suport their strong claim.
The compilation of a report alleging Russian interference by way of cyber attacks is insufficient.
Intelligence agents are yet to provide proof that Russian officials directed particular individuals to supply WikiLeaks with the hacked Democratic emails. The denial by Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, provides more reason for strong evidence before the leak can be factually associated with Russia.
The allegations themselves contained in the report could be true since Russia’s preference for Trump was well known, and not a secret. However, just because Russia had preference for Trump as president cannot in any valid sense be equated with a presumption or assertion that they collaborated in the execution of cyber attacks to rig the elections.
The report claimed that individuals were “one step” removed from the Russian government, which is consistent with past practices by Moscow to use “middlemen” in sensitive intelligence operations to preserve plausible deniability, the report said.
Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz has announced Obama call for the cyberattacks review earlier this week to ensure “the integrity of our elections.” Schultz said:
”This report will dig into this pattern of malicious cyberactivity timed to our elections, take stock of our defensive capabilities and capture lessons learned to make sure that we brief members of Congress and stakeholders as appropriate; Schultz said.