RUSSIA 🇷🇺 Thread: Wikileaks=FSB front, UKRAINE?, SNOWED LIED; NATO Aggression; Trump = Putins B!tch
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/europe/russia-putin-cyberattacks.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Russia Updates Plan to Counter Cyberattacks and Foreign Influence
By ANDREW E. KRAMERDEC. 6, 2016
MOSCOW — The Kremlin published a new plan on Tuesday to defend Russia against what it described as stepped-up cyberattacks and “information-psychological” methods by foreign intelligence agencies bent on influencing its population with online information.
The plan updates a similar information security doctrine put in place by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000, early in his first term, that staked out a renewed role for post-Soviet government in monitoring information.
The latest iteration of the doctrine comes as American officials have mulled retaliating against Russia for what the Department of Homeland Security said was government-orchestrated hacking before the presidential election, including stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee.
The plan, signed by Mr. Putin on Monday but published on Tuesday, described a threat to Russia of technological malfeasance similar to what the United States has accused the Russians of committing. It did not mention, however, any specific online strikes against Russia indicating that American retaliation could be underway.
Russia, the document says, is at risk of attacks on systems of “information support for democratic institutions” and the spread of harmful, false information.
It notes the “increasing scale of certain countries and organizations using information technologies for military and political goals.”
The 16-page document sketches out what the Kremlin sees as the main threats to its security and national interest from foreign information making its way into the country, and sets priorities for countering them. It identifies terrorist recruiting and financial crime as dangers.
Under Mr. Putin, the Kremlin has staked out a role as a defender of conservative values, notably pushing back against gay rights, and the new doctrine is no exception, with a clause raising concern about risks to “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” of Russian young people.
It also notes the risk to Russia of “a tendency toward an increase of materials containing biased assessments of the state policies of the Russian Federation in foreign media.”
The doctrine supports a plan, in the works for some time, to gain control over the Russian segment of the web by basing more servers inside the country. The plan envisions operating the Russian internet autonomously, if needed in time of war, by switching it off from the rest of the world.
And it directs Russian diplomats to pursue the Kremlin’s policy goals on information security at international organizations like the United Nations.
Russia has advocated, without much success so far, replacing the nonprofit group that now controls top-level domains with a global agency, the International Telecommunication Union.
The document calls attention to “information-psychological actions” from abroad undermining Russian “patriotic traditions of defending the Fatherland.”
Russia has already passed laws aimed at regulating internet content and forcing foreign companies to base data servers in Russia. Last month, a Moscow court ordered internet service providers to block LinkedIn, the professional social networking site, for failing to comply.
Under a separate law governing news aggregators, sites with daily traffic exceeding 1 million users would bear responsibility as publishers, including a requirement to verify the truthfulness of the articles reposted on their websites. The law would apply to Google, among other aggregators.
A spokesman for the regulator, Roskomnadzor, on Tuesday denied a report in the Izvestiya newspaper saying Russian officials had already instructed Google to comply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/europe/russia-putin-cyberattacks.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Russia Updates Plan to Counter Cyberattacks and Foreign Influence
By ANDREW E. KRAMERDEC. 6, 2016
MOSCOW — The Kremlin published a new plan on Tuesday to defend Russia against what it described as stepped-up cyberattacks and “information-psychological” methods by foreign intelligence agencies bent on influencing its population with online information.
The plan updates a similar information security doctrine put in place by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000, early in his first term, that staked out a renewed role for post-Soviet government in monitoring information.
The latest iteration of the doctrine comes as American officials have mulled retaliating against Russia for what the Department of Homeland Security said was government-orchestrated hacking before the presidential election, including stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee.
The plan, signed by Mr. Putin on Monday but published on Tuesday, described a threat to Russia of technological malfeasance similar to what the United States has accused the Russians of committing. It did not mention, however, any specific online strikes against Russia indicating that American retaliation could be underway.
Russia, the document says, is at risk of attacks on systems of “information support for democratic institutions” and the spread of harmful, false information.
It notes the “increasing scale of certain countries and organizations using information technologies for military and political goals.”
The 16-page document sketches out what the Kremlin sees as the main threats to its security and national interest from foreign information making its way into the country, and sets priorities for countering them. It identifies terrorist recruiting and financial crime as dangers.
Under Mr. Putin, the Kremlin has staked out a role as a defender of conservative values, notably pushing back against gay rights, and the new doctrine is no exception, with a clause raising concern about risks to “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” of Russian young people.
It also notes the risk to Russia of “a tendency toward an increase of materials containing biased assessments of the state policies of the Russian Federation in foreign media.”
The doctrine supports a plan, in the works for some time, to gain control over the Russian segment of the web by basing more servers inside the country. The plan envisions operating the Russian internet autonomously, if needed in time of war, by switching it off from the rest of the world.
And it directs Russian diplomats to pursue the Kremlin’s policy goals on information security at international organizations like the United Nations.
Russia has advocated, without much success so far, replacing the nonprofit group that now controls top-level domains with a global agency, the International Telecommunication Union.
The document calls attention to “information-psychological actions” from abroad undermining Russian “patriotic traditions of defending the Fatherland.”
Russia has already passed laws aimed at regulating internet content and forcing foreign companies to base data servers in Russia. Last month, a Moscow court ordered internet service providers to block LinkedIn, the professional social networking site, for failing to comply.
Under a separate law governing news aggregators, sites with daily traffic exceeding 1 million users would bear responsibility as publishers, including a requirement to verify the truthfulness of the articles reposted on their websites. The law would apply to Google, among other aggregators.
A spokesman for the regulator, Roskomnadzor, on Tuesday denied a report in the Izvestiya newspaper saying Russian officials had already instructed Google to comply.
Germany told Russia to pull the fukk up 
@88m3 @Leasy @ADevilYouKhow @GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy! @Blessed Is the Man @88m3 @dtownreppin214
@88m3 @Leasy @ADevilYouKhow @GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy! @Blessed Is the Man @88m3 @dtownreppin214
U.S. intel agencies preparing dossier to prove Russian hacks
Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference
The Election Is Over, But Examining Russia’s Repeated Hacks Shouldn’t Be
U.S. Intel Agencies Preparing Dossier to Prove Russian Hacks
by Ken Dilanian
President Barack Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver to him a dossier of the evidence that the Russian government used cyber attacks and other means to intervene in the 2016 election, possibly with the idea of making more information public, a senior intelligence official tells NBC News.
White House counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco told reporters that the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others. Obama leaves office on Jan. 20. Monaco used careful language, calling it a "full review of what happened during the 2016 election process."
But since the U.S. government has already said that all 17 intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind the hacks, Monaco's meaning was clear.
"We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned," Monaco said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Given President-elect Donald Trump's repeated insistence that he does not believe U.S. Intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the election, Obama is concerned that Russia will go unpunished for the behavior unless he acts, administration officials have told NBC News.
Related: Trump Was Told Russia to Blame for Hacks Long Before First Debate
But intelligence officials are wary about disclosing information that can show Russia's involvement, fearful that doing so will compromise sensitive sources and methods.
Republicans in Congress, including Lindsay Graham and John McCain have indicated they will support efforts by Democrats to investigate the Russian hacks and other interference in the election.
On Thursday, McCain, Graham, Marco Rubio and nine other GOP senators joined 15 Democratic senators in calling on Trump to maintain its support for Ukraine "in the face of Russian aggression."
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "pleased that the Administration is undertaking a full review of Russian hacking into our elections and democratic institutions. The administration should work to declassify as much of it as possible, while protecting our sources and methods, and make it available to the public."
Related: Hackers Target Election Systems in 20 States
Schiff added, "After many briefings by our intelligence community, it is clear to me that the Russians hacked our democratic institutions and sought to interfere in our elections and sow discord. In this, tragically, they succeeded. Given President-elect Trump's disturbing refusal to listen to our intelligence community and accept that the hacking was orchestrated by the Kremlin, there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month."
If the U.S. doesn't respond forcefully, Schiff said, "we can expect to see a lot more of this in the near future."
@88m3 @Leasy @ADevilYouKhow @GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy! @Blessed Is the Man @88m3 @dtownreppin214
Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference
The Election Is Over, But Examining Russia’s Repeated Hacks Shouldn’t Be
U.S. Intel Agencies Preparing Dossier to Prove Russian Hacks
by Ken Dilanian
President Barack Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver to him a dossier of the evidence that the Russian government used cyber attacks and other means to intervene in the 2016 election, possibly with the idea of making more information public, a senior intelligence official tells NBC News.
White House counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco told reporters that the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others. Obama leaves office on Jan. 20. Monaco used careful language, calling it a "full review of what happened during the 2016 election process."
But since the U.S. government has already said that all 17 intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind the hacks, Monaco's meaning was clear.
"We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned," Monaco said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Given President-elect Donald Trump's repeated insistence that he does not believe U.S. Intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the election, Obama is concerned that Russia will go unpunished for the behavior unless he acts, administration officials have told NBC News.
Related: Trump Was Told Russia to Blame for Hacks Long Before First Debate
But intelligence officials are wary about disclosing information that can show Russia's involvement, fearful that doing so will compromise sensitive sources and methods.
Republicans in Congress, including Lindsay Graham and John McCain have indicated they will support efforts by Democrats to investigate the Russian hacks and other interference in the election.
On Thursday, McCain, Graham, Marco Rubio and nine other GOP senators joined 15 Democratic senators in calling on Trump to maintain its support for Ukraine "in the face of Russian aggression."
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "pleased that the Administration is undertaking a full review of Russian hacking into our elections and democratic institutions. The administration should work to declassify as much of it as possible, while protecting our sources and methods, and make it available to the public."
Related: Hackers Target Election Systems in 20 States
Schiff added, "After many briefings by our intelligence community, it is clear to me that the Russians hacked our democratic institutions and sought to interfere in our elections and sow discord. In this, tragically, they succeeded. Given President-elect Trump's disturbing refusal to listen to our intelligence community and accept that the hacking was orchestrated by the Kremlin, there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month."
If the U.S. doesn't respond forcefully, Schiff said, "we can expect to see a lot more of this in the near future."
@88m3 @Leasy @ADevilYouKhow @GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy! @Blessed Is the Man @88m3 @dtownreppin214
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-hack.html
Russia Hacked Republican Committee but Kept Data, U.S. Concludes
By DAVID E. SANGER and DEC. 9, 2016
President Obama giving a speech in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday. He has ordered a comprehensive report on the Russian efforts. Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.
Mr. Trump’s transition office issued a statement Friday evening reflecting the deep divisions that emerged between his campaign and the intelligence agencies over Russian meddling in the election. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement said. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”
One senior government official, who had been briefed on an F.B.I. investigation into the matter, said that while there were attempts to penetrate the Republican committee’s systems, they were not successful.
But the intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the hacking efforts were successful, which have been presented to President Obama and other senior officials, add a complex wrinkle to the question of what the Kremlin’s evolving objectives were in intervening in the American presidential election.
“We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republican organization, one senior administration official said, referring to the Russians.
It is unclear how many files were stolen from the Republican committee; in some cases, investigators never get a clear picture. It is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.
The Russians were as surprised as everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory, intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clinton won, they believe, emails stolen from the Democratic committee and from senior members of her campaign could have been used to undercut her legitimacy. The intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Mr. Trump was first reported by The Washington Post.
In briefings to the White House and Congress, intelligence officials, including those from the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, have identified individual Russian officials they believe were responsible. But none have been publicly penalized.
It is possible that in hacking into the Republican committee, Russian agents were simply hedging their bets. The attack took place in the spring, the senior officials said, about the same time that a group of hackers believed to be linked to the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency, stole the emails of senior officials of the Democratic National Committee. Intelligence agencies believe that the Republican committee hack was carried out by the same Russians who penetrated the Democratic committee and other Democratic groups.
The finding about the Republican committee is expected to be included in a detailed report of “lessons learned” that Mr. Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to assemble before he leaves office on Jan. 20. That report is intended, in part, to create a comprehensive history of the Russian effort to influence the election, and to solidify the intelligence findings before Mr. Trump is sworn in.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt about any intelligence suggesting a Russian effort to influence the election. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he told Time magazine in an interview published this week. He suggested that hackers could come from China, or that “it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
Intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies believe that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by two different Russian cyberunits. One, called “Cozy Bear” or “A.P.T. 29” by some Western security experts, is believed to have spent months inside the D.N.C. computer network, as well as other government and political institutions, but never made public any of the documents it took. (A.P.T. stands for “Advanced Persistent Threat,” which usually describes a sophisticated state-sponsored cyberintruder.)
The other, the G.R.U.-controlled unit known as “Fancy Bear,” or “A.P.T. 28,” is believed to have created two outlets on the internet, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to make Democratic documents public. Many of the documents were also provided to WikiLeaks, which released them over many weeks before the Nov. 8 election.
Representative Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on CNN in September that the R.N.C. had been hacked by Russia, but then quickly withdrew the claim.
Mr. McCaul, who was considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of Homeland Security, initially told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the D.N.C. but also into the R.N.C.” He added that “the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”
Minutes later, the R.N.C. issued a statement denying that it had been hacked. Mr. McCaul subsequently said that he had misspoken, but that it was true that “Republican political operatives” had been the target of Russian hacking. So were establishment Republicans with no ties to the campaign, including former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Mr. McCaul may have had in mind a collection of more than 200 emails of Republican officials and activists that appeared this year on the website DCLeaks.com. That website got far more attention for the many Democratic Party documents it posted.
The messages stolen from Republicans have drawn little attention because most are routine business emails from local Republican Party officials in several states, congressional staff members and party activists.
Among those whose emails were posted was Peter W. Smith, who runs a venture capital firm in Chicago and has long been active in “opposition research” for the Republican Party. He said he was unaware that his emails had been hacked until he was called by a reporter on Thursday.
He said he believes that his material came from a hack of the Illinois Republican Party.
“I’m not upset at all,” he said. “I try in my communications, quite frankly, not to say anything that would be embarrassing if made public.”
Russia Hacked Republican Committee but Kept Data, U.S. Concludes
By DAVID E. SANGER and DEC. 9, 2016
President Obama giving a speech in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday. He has ordered a comprehensive report on the Russian efforts. Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.
Mr. Trump’s transition office issued a statement Friday evening reflecting the deep divisions that emerged between his campaign and the intelligence agencies over Russian meddling in the election. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement said. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”
One senior government official, who had been briefed on an F.B.I. investigation into the matter, said that while there were attempts to penetrate the Republican committee’s systems, they were not successful.
But the intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the hacking efforts were successful, which have been presented to President Obama and other senior officials, add a complex wrinkle to the question of what the Kremlin’s evolving objectives were in intervening in the American presidential election.
“We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republican organization, one senior administration official said, referring to the Russians.
It is unclear how many files were stolen from the Republican committee; in some cases, investigators never get a clear picture. It is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.
The Russians were as surprised as everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory, intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clinton won, they believe, emails stolen from the Democratic committee and from senior members of her campaign could have been used to undercut her legitimacy. The intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Mr. Trump was first reported by The Washington Post.
In briefings to the White House and Congress, intelligence officials, including those from the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, have identified individual Russian officials they believe were responsible. But none have been publicly penalized.
It is possible that in hacking into the Republican committee, Russian agents were simply hedging their bets. The attack took place in the spring, the senior officials said, about the same time that a group of hackers believed to be linked to the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency, stole the emails of senior officials of the Democratic National Committee. Intelligence agencies believe that the Republican committee hack was carried out by the same Russians who penetrated the Democratic committee and other Democratic groups.
The finding about the Republican committee is expected to be included in a detailed report of “lessons learned” that Mr. Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to assemble before he leaves office on Jan. 20. That report is intended, in part, to create a comprehensive history of the Russian effort to influence the election, and to solidify the intelligence findings before Mr. Trump is sworn in.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt about any intelligence suggesting a Russian effort to influence the election. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he told Time magazine in an interview published this week. He suggested that hackers could come from China, or that “it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
Intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies believe that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by two different Russian cyberunits. One, called “Cozy Bear” or “A.P.T. 29” by some Western security experts, is believed to have spent months inside the D.N.C. computer network, as well as other government and political institutions, but never made public any of the documents it took. (A.P.T. stands for “Advanced Persistent Threat,” which usually describes a sophisticated state-sponsored cyberintruder.)
The other, the G.R.U.-controlled unit known as “Fancy Bear,” or “A.P.T. 28,” is believed to have created two outlets on the internet, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to make Democratic documents public. Many of the documents were also provided to WikiLeaks, which released them over many weeks before the Nov. 8 election.
Representative Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on CNN in September that the R.N.C. had been hacked by Russia, but then quickly withdrew the claim.
Mr. McCaul, who was considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of Homeland Security, initially told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the D.N.C. but also into the R.N.C.” He added that “the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”
Minutes later, the R.N.C. issued a statement denying that it had been hacked. Mr. McCaul subsequently said that he had misspoken, but that it was true that “Republican political operatives” had been the target of Russian hacking. So were establishment Republicans with no ties to the campaign, including former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Mr. McCaul may have had in mind a collection of more than 200 emails of Republican officials and activists that appeared this year on the website DCLeaks.com. That website got far more attention for the many Democratic Party documents it posted.
The messages stolen from Republicans have drawn little attention because most are routine business emails from local Republican Party officials in several states, congressional staff members and party activists.
Among those whose emails were posted was Peter W. Smith, who runs a venture capital firm in Chicago and has long been active in “opposition research” for the Republican Party. He said he was unaware that his emails had been hacked until he was called by a reporter on Thursday.
He said he believes that his material came from a hack of the Illinois Republican Party.
“I’m not upset at all,” he said. “I try in my communications, quite frankly, not to say anything that would be embarrassing if made public.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/u...ntelligence-russia-hacking-evidence.html?_r=0
C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence
By MARK MAZZETTI and DEC. 11, 2016
President Vladimir V. Putin last month at the Kremlin. The C.I.A. believes he deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump. Pool photo by Alexei Druzhinin
WASHINGTON — American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign. But they had conflicting views about the specific goals of the subterfuge.
Last week, Central Intelligence Agency officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald J. Trump president.
The C.I.A.’s conclusion does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained since the election, several American officials, including some who had read the agency’s briefing, said on Sunday. Rather, it was an analysis of what many believe is overwhelming circumstantial evidence — evidence that others feel does not support firm judgments — that the Russians put a thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump, and got their desired outcome.
It is unclear why the C.I.A. did not produce this formal assessment before the election, although several officials said that parts of it had been made available to President Obama in the presidential daily briefing in the weeks before the vote. But the conclusion that Moscow ran an operation to help install the next president is one of the most consequential analyses by American spy agencies in years.
Mr. Trump’s response has been to dismiss the reports by citing another famous intelligence assessment — the botched 2002 conclusion that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction — and portraying American spies as bumbling and biased.
“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday in an interview on Fox News. Some top Republican congressmen have said the same, although with less bombastic language, arguing that there is no clear proof that the Russians tried to rig the election for Mr. Trump.
Yet there is a loud chorus of bipartisan voices, including Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, going public to accuse the Russians of election interference.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public evidence alone made it clear that Moscow had intervened to help the “most ostentatiously pro-Russian candidate in history.”
“If the Russians were going to interfere, why on earth would they do it to the detriment of the candidate that was pro-Russian?” Mr. Schiff asked.
The dispute cuts to core realities of intelligence analysis. Judgments are often made in a fog of uncertainty, are sometimes based on putting together shards of a mosaic that do not reveal a full picture, and can always be affected by human biases.
“This is why I hate the term ‘we speak truth to power,’” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior C.I.A. analyst. “We don’t have truth. We have really good ideas.”
Mr. Lowenthal said that determining the motives of foreign leaders — in this case, what drove President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to order the hacking — was one of the most important missions for C.I.A. analysts. In 2002, one of the critical failures of American spy agencies was their inability to understand Saddam Hussein’s goals and motives.
At the same time, Mr. Lowenthal said, intelligence agencies have always been loath to be seen as taking sides in disputes about American politics.
“This is the one place you don’t want to be as an intelligence officer: the meat in someone’s partisan sandwich,” he said.
Both intelligence and law enforcement officials agree that there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the Russian hacking was primarily aimed at helping Mr. Trump and damaging his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In July, the infiltration of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers produced embarrassing emails and other internal party documents, the publication of which caused a backlash that led to the resignation of the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her top staff. Just weeks before the election, hacked emails from the account of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, were made public and produced numerous stories about the internal dynamics of the campaign. That hack also produced the text of speechesMrs. Clinton had given to Wall Street banks.
American intelligence officials believe that Russia also penetrated databases housing Republican National Committee data, but chose to release documents only on the Democrats. The committee has denied that it was hacked.
Beyond the specific targets of the hacks, American officials cite broad evidence that Mr. Putin and the Russian government favored Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton.
After demonstrators marched through Moscow in 2011 chanting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” Mr. Putin publicly accused Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, of instigating the protests. “She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,” he said.
More generally, the Russian government has blamed Mrs. Clinton, along with the C.I.A. and other American officials, for encouraging anti-Russian revolts during the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. What Americans saw as legitimate democracy promotion, Mr. Putin saw as an unwarranted intrusion into Russia’s geographic sphere of interest, as the United States once saw Soviet meddling in Cuba.
By contrast, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have had a very public mutual admiration society. In December 2015, the Russian president called Mr. Trump “very colorful” — using a Russian word that Mr. Trump and some news outlets mistranslated as “brilliant” — as well as “talented” and “absolutely the leader in the presidential race.” Mr. Trump called Mr. Putin “a strong leader” and further pleased him by questioning whether the United States should defend NATO members that did not spend enough on their militaries.
Russian television, which is tightly controlled by the government, has generally portrayed Mr. Trump as a strong, friendly potential partner while often airing scathing assessments of Mrs. Clinton.
And yet, there is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected.
A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Mr. Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said.
The official played down any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media.
The agencies’ differences in judgment may also reflect different methods of investigating the Russian interference. The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions. The C.I.A. has a broader mandate to develop intelligence assessments.
Law enforcement officials said that if F.B.I. agents had the evidence to charge Russians with specific crimes, they would do so. The F.B.I. and federal prosecutors have already gone aggressively after Russian hackers, including two men detained in Thailand and the Czech Republic whom the United States is trying to extradite.
Russia has tried to block those efforts and has accused the United States of harassing its citizens.
The F.B.I. began investigating Russia’s apparent attempts to meddle in the election over the summer. Agents examined numerous possible connections between Russians and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including former Trump aides like Paul Manafort and Carter Page, as well as a mysterious and unexplained trail of computer activity between the Trump Organization and an email account at a large Russian bank, Alfa Bank.
At the height of its investigation before the election, the F.B.I. saw some indications that the Russians might be explicitly seeking to get Mr. Trump elected, officials said, and investigators collected online evidence and conducted interviews overseas and inside the United States to test that theory.
The F.B.I. was concerned enough about Russia’s influence and possible connections to the Trump campaign that it briefed congressional leaders — including Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate minority leader — on some of the evidence this summer and fall. Mr. Reid, in particular, pressed for the F.B.I. to find out more and charged that the agency was sitting on important information that could implicate Russia.
But the agency’s suspicions about a direct effort by Russia to help Mr. Trump, or about possible connections between the two camps, appear to have waned as the investigation continued into September and October. The reasons are not entirely clear, and F.B.I. officials declined to comment.
Now that a partisan squall has erupted over exactly what role Russia played in influencing the election, there is growing momentum among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to have a congressional investigation.
“I’m not trying to relitigate the election,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who is one of the lawmakers calling for such an investigation. “I’m just trying to prevent this from happening again.”
C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence
By MARK MAZZETTI and DEC. 11, 2016
President Vladimir V. Putin last month at the Kremlin. The C.I.A. believes he deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump. Pool photo by Alexei Druzhinin
WASHINGTON — American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign. But they had conflicting views about the specific goals of the subterfuge.
Last week, Central Intelligence Agency officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald J. Trump president.
The C.I.A.’s conclusion does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained since the election, several American officials, including some who had read the agency’s briefing, said on Sunday. Rather, it was an analysis of what many believe is overwhelming circumstantial evidence — evidence that others feel does not support firm judgments — that the Russians put a thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump, and got their desired outcome.
It is unclear why the C.I.A. did not produce this formal assessment before the election, although several officials said that parts of it had been made available to President Obama in the presidential daily briefing in the weeks before the vote. But the conclusion that Moscow ran an operation to help install the next president is one of the most consequential analyses by American spy agencies in years.
Mr. Trump’s response has been to dismiss the reports by citing another famous intelligence assessment — the botched 2002 conclusion that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction — and portraying American spies as bumbling and biased.
“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday in an interview on Fox News. Some top Republican congressmen have said the same, although with less bombastic language, arguing that there is no clear proof that the Russians tried to rig the election for Mr. Trump.
Yet there is a loud chorus of bipartisan voices, including Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, going public to accuse the Russians of election interference.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public evidence alone made it clear that Moscow had intervened to help the “most ostentatiously pro-Russian candidate in history.”
“If the Russians were going to interfere, why on earth would they do it to the detriment of the candidate that was pro-Russian?” Mr. Schiff asked.
The dispute cuts to core realities of intelligence analysis. Judgments are often made in a fog of uncertainty, are sometimes based on putting together shards of a mosaic that do not reveal a full picture, and can always be affected by human biases.
“This is why I hate the term ‘we speak truth to power,’” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior C.I.A. analyst. “We don’t have truth. We have really good ideas.”
Mr. Lowenthal said that determining the motives of foreign leaders — in this case, what drove President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to order the hacking — was one of the most important missions for C.I.A. analysts. In 2002, one of the critical failures of American spy agencies was their inability to understand Saddam Hussein’s goals and motives.
At the same time, Mr. Lowenthal said, intelligence agencies have always been loath to be seen as taking sides in disputes about American politics.
“This is the one place you don’t want to be as an intelligence officer: the meat in someone’s partisan sandwich,” he said.
Both intelligence and law enforcement officials agree that there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the Russian hacking was primarily aimed at helping Mr. Trump and damaging his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In July, the infiltration of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers produced embarrassing emails and other internal party documents, the publication of which caused a backlash that led to the resignation of the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her top staff. Just weeks before the election, hacked emails from the account of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, were made public and produced numerous stories about the internal dynamics of the campaign. That hack also produced the text of speechesMrs. Clinton had given to Wall Street banks.
American intelligence officials believe that Russia also penetrated databases housing Republican National Committee data, but chose to release documents only on the Democrats. The committee has denied that it was hacked.
Beyond the specific targets of the hacks, American officials cite broad evidence that Mr. Putin and the Russian government favored Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton.
After demonstrators marched through Moscow in 2011 chanting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” Mr. Putin publicly accused Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, of instigating the protests. “She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,” he said.
More generally, the Russian government has blamed Mrs. Clinton, along with the C.I.A. and other American officials, for encouraging anti-Russian revolts during the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. What Americans saw as legitimate democracy promotion, Mr. Putin saw as an unwarranted intrusion into Russia’s geographic sphere of interest, as the United States once saw Soviet meddling in Cuba.
By contrast, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have had a very public mutual admiration society. In December 2015, the Russian president called Mr. Trump “very colorful” — using a Russian word that Mr. Trump and some news outlets mistranslated as “brilliant” — as well as “talented” and “absolutely the leader in the presidential race.” Mr. Trump called Mr. Putin “a strong leader” and further pleased him by questioning whether the United States should defend NATO members that did not spend enough on their militaries.
Russian television, which is tightly controlled by the government, has generally portrayed Mr. Trump as a strong, friendly potential partner while often airing scathing assessments of Mrs. Clinton.
And yet, there is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected.
A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Mr. Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said.
The official played down any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media.
The agencies’ differences in judgment may also reflect different methods of investigating the Russian interference. The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions. The C.I.A. has a broader mandate to develop intelligence assessments.
Law enforcement officials said that if F.B.I. agents had the evidence to charge Russians with specific crimes, they would do so. The F.B.I. and federal prosecutors have already gone aggressively after Russian hackers, including two men detained in Thailand and the Czech Republic whom the United States is trying to extradite.
Russia has tried to block those efforts and has accused the United States of harassing its citizens.
The F.B.I. began investigating Russia’s apparent attempts to meddle in the election over the summer. Agents examined numerous possible connections between Russians and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including former Trump aides like Paul Manafort and Carter Page, as well as a mysterious and unexplained trail of computer activity between the Trump Organization and an email account at a large Russian bank, Alfa Bank.
At the height of its investigation before the election, the F.B.I. saw some indications that the Russians might be explicitly seeking to get Mr. Trump elected, officials said, and investigators collected online evidence and conducted interviews overseas and inside the United States to test that theory.
The F.B.I. was concerned enough about Russia’s influence and possible connections to the Trump campaign that it briefed congressional leaders — including Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate minority leader — on some of the evidence this summer and fall. Mr. Reid, in particular, pressed for the F.B.I. to find out more and charged that the agency was sitting on important information that could implicate Russia.
But the agency’s suspicions about a direct effort by Russia to help Mr. Trump, or about possible connections between the two camps, appear to have waned as the investigation continued into September and October. The reasons are not entirely clear, and F.B.I. officials declined to comment.
Now that a partisan squall has erupted over exactly what role Russia played in influencing the election, there is growing momentum among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to have a congressional investigation.
“I’m not trying to relitigate the election,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who is one of the lawmakers calling for such an investigation. “I’m just trying to prevent this from happening again.”