The Flimsy Obama Russian Hacking Tale that Trump Isn't Buying

We are witnesses to a contest between President-Elect Donald Trump and his security team and President Barack Obama and his security team concerning the hacking into Democratic National Committee computers and its political and/or security aftermath. The mainstream media overwhelmingly supports Obama because they support him, and attack Trump, at every opportunity. But, this in no way helps us bystanders to understand the situation. • • • NO COMPUTER IS SAFE. Trump says : "no computer is safe" when it comes to keeping information private. But, Trump's skepticism about the security of online communications does not mean that his administration is not going to use computers for everything from day-to-day planning to international relations. That said, Trump reportedly rarely uses email or computers, despite his frequent tweeting : "You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I'll tell you what : No computer is safe." • • • TRUMP SPOKESMAN SUGGESTS OBAMA BEING POLITICAL. Trump is almost alone in his repeated skepticism about allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russia tried to influence the presidential election through hacking. Obama ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies last week, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the US said were really spies -- many top Republicans in Congress, including Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, and Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain, applauded the President’s actions. But, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Sunday told ABC he questions the validity of President Obama’s latest actions to retaliate against Russia for its election-related cyberattacks : “I think one of the questions that we have is, ‘Why the magnitude of this?’ I mean you look at 35 people being expelled, two sites being closed down, the question is, is that response in proportion to the actions taken? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.” When asked if Trump agrees with Obama’s actions or whether he plans to reverse them, Spicer said that the President-Elect plans to sit down with the leaders of the Intelligence Committees on Capitol Hill to receive a full briefing in the next week. During the interview, Spicer also questioned why Obama acted now. Spicer said the administration didn’t appear to respond, at least publicly, to the 2015 hack by Chinese hackers into records held by the Office of Personnel Management : “China took over a million records, sensitive data of people like me who had worked in the government at any time. Not one thing happened.” [Obama's response was to send letters to the 2 million federal employees whose records were hacked by China, telling them they would be covered for losses caused by the hack.] Spicer was asked whether Trump can accept the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was behind the cyberattacks during the US election, and he deflected the question. • While Trump has said it is time to “move on,” he continues to express doubt about the assessment that Russia interfered with the election. Trump plans to meet with intelligence officials in coming days to learn more about the allegations, but he said he wants US officials "to be sure because it's a pretty serious charge." He pointed to intelligence failures over the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the US invasion. • • • THE INTELLIGENCE REPORT. We should keep in mind that the report being used to charge Russia with the hacking and interference in the US presidential election is based on a report written by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, both agencies firmly under the control of President Obama. • On New Year's Day, Clarice Feldman wrote in American Thinker : "Democratic Party efforts to defeat Trump through ginned up riots, slanderous accusations of racism, homophobia, sexism and anti-Semitism having failed to schlep the unappealing Hillary Clinton into the winner’s circle, moved on to Obama’s efforts to delegitimize his successor. Electoral College intimidation, riots, pointless recounts weren’t enough to do that job. This week, Obama claimed that Russians 'hacked' the election. No proof of this has been offered up, nor can it. Even Rolling Stone was not persuaded and found that the joint FBI/Homeland Security report released by the administration didn’t make that case." What the Rolling Stone said was Obama's response was "oddly weak and ill-timed" : "This report is long on jargon but short on specifics. More than half of it is just a list of suggestions for preventive measures....But we don't learn much at all about what led our government to determine a) that these hacks were directed by the Russian government, or b) they were undertaken with the aim of influencing the election, and in particular to help elect Donald Trump....Nothing quite adds up." Thomas Lipscomb had a stronger reaction : “Never in the diplomatic history of the United States have 35 members of any diplomatic mission been sent home while our nations were not at war. Obama is clearly insane. There was no consultation with any other branch of the government on this, I would have him interned in Hawaii pending mental examination and swear in Biden for the duration.” David Goldman was more moderate but just as critical : “Let's see: John Podesta and the DNC rig the Democratic primaries to favor Clinton against Sanders, which is blatant abuse of power if not outright criminality. Someone leaks the emails and exposes Podesta's misdeeds. This makes the DNC look bad. And now Obama et. al. claim that LEAKING the evidence of DNC misdeeds was the crime, rather than the misdeeds themselves. That's a better (if less economical) definition of Chutzpah than the fellow who kills his parents and asks for leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan.” • John Podesta fell for a phishing email and gave his password. According to some accounts, the phishing email had Russian fingerprints/characteristics in its metadata. Whatever the case, the password thiefs downloaded his emails, which eventually got into the hands of Wikileaks, who made them public. The emails were mostly embarrassing, especially to Hillary's inner circle and the media. At the time of their release in October, they were hardly covered by any media, and largely dismissed as nothing. Not one of the people whose emails were leaked has ever disputed their authenticity or provenance. Fast forward to the election and Obama & Co's post-election efforts to 'unelect' Trump. All that failing, in December, the October 'nothing' has now magically transformed into “vote hacking” and “election hacking.” The new Obama/Democrat/media narrative had morphed into treasonous Trump operatives conspiring with Putin to "hypnotically mesmerize Clinton voters into pulling the wrong lever." • And it was effective -- polls show that 50%+ of Democrats believe the Russians literally modified vote tallies. So, the Spicer suggestion that Obama may be playing politics with the hacking affair is not so far-fetched. • • • RUSSIA RESPONDS. Russia’s government continues to deny US accusations that it hacked and stole emails to try to help Trump win. Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed away the Obama administration response, and in this statement from the Kremlin clearly refused to be baited by Obama's provocation : "We regard the recent unfriendly steps taken by the outgoing US administration as provocative and aimed at further weakening the Russia-US relationship. This runs contrary to the fundamental interests of both the Russian and American people. Considering the global security responsibilities of Russia and the United States, this is also damaging to international relations as a whole. As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind. Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration. The diplomats who are returning to Russia will spend the New Year’s holidays with their families and friends. We will not create any problems for US diplomats. We will not expel anyone. We will not prevent their families and children from using their traditional leisure sites during the New Year’s holidays. Moreover, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas children’s parties in the Kremlin. It is regrettable that the Obama Administration is ending its term in this manner. Nevertheless, I offer my New Year greetings to President Obama and his family. My season’s greetings also to President-elect Donald Trump and the American people. I wish all of you happiness and prosperity." • The Russian foreign ministry had recommended the expulsion of 35 US diplomats on Friday as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks that he had also suggested Putin bar American diplomats from using their summer retreat on the outskirts of Moscow and a warehouse south of Moscow. “We, of course, cannot leave these tricks [new US sanctions against Russia] unanswered. Reciprocity is the law of diplomacy and foreign relations,” Lavrov said. • Russian Prime Minister Medvedev, who focused on improving US-Russia ties when he was president from 2008-2012, called the latest diplomatic breach “sad” in a Twitter post : “It is regrettable that the Obama administration, which started out by restoring our ties, is ending its term in an anti-Russia agony. RIP." • The official Russian reactions were mild, considering that President Obama's sanctions included closing two Russian recreational compounds in Maryland and New York that have apparently long been used by the GRU and FSB, leading Russian intelligence agencies, that the US said were involved in the hacking. Obama also threatened to launch a covert counterattack. Obama said from his vacation home in Hawaii : “All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions. Such activities have consequences.” Yet Obama and his security team know that the cyberwar they seem to be pushing the US and Russia into would be disastrous worldwide, and they also know the sanctions could easily be pulled back by Trump, who has insisted that Obama and Democrats are merely attempting to delegitimize his election. It was the strongest action the Obama administration has taken to date to retaliate for a cyberattack -- far more comprehensive than last year’s sanctions on North Korea after it hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment. The new penalties add to existing US sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which have impaired Russia’s economy but had limited impact on President Vladimir Putin’s behavior. Russia called the penalties a clumsy yet aggressive attempt to “harm Russian-American ties.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would take into account the fact that Trump will soon replace Obama as it drafts retaliatory measures. US relations with Russia have suffered during Obama’s years in office as he and Putin tussled over Ukraine, Edward Snowden and Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad -- despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's famous Russia 'reset' button. • • • THE TECH COMMUNITY RESPONSE. Many technical experts seem to be hesitant to endorse the Obama / FBI / DHS claims. • ARS Technica is a website covering news in technology, politics, and society, created in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Many of the site's writers are postgraduates and some work for research institutions. The website was privately owned until May 2008, when it was sold to Condé Nast Digital, the online division of Condé Nast Publications. Here’s what ARS Tecnica said about Obama fingering the Russians as the source of the supposed “election” hacks : "Talk about disappointments. The US government's much-anticipated analysis of Russian-sponsored hacking operations provides almost none of the promised evidence linking them to breaches that the Obama administration claims were orchestrated in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The 13-page report, which was jointly published Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, billed itself as an indictment of sorts that would finally lay out the intelligence community's case that Russian government operatives carried out hacks on the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Clinton Campaign Chief John Podesta and leaked much of the resulting material. While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know the true origins of the attacks. Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups. Surely this is a big surprise to us all." ARS Technica quoted the founder of cyber situational awareness company Dragos, Robert M. Lee, who said the report was “very rushed” and organized by “teams working with different data sets and motivations.” Lee offered the following opinion of the government report : "It is my opinion and speculation that there were some really good government analysts and operators contributing to this data and then report reviews, leadership approval processes, and sanitation processes stripped out most of the value and left behind a very confusing report trying to cover too much while saying too little." Essentially, web security experts are saying the report has little evidentiary basis and offers little in the way of convicting the Russians of the hacking. • • • DEAR READERS, Obama appears to be attempting to provoke the Russians into a confrontation. This attack on Russia is really an attack on Donald Trump. Respected MSM American journalist Andrea Mitchell, before Obama announced the sanctions against Russia, reported that the Obama administration would take steps to “box in” President-Elect Trump so the sanctions are not easily reversible. Mitchell said the excuse for this provocation is the alleged Russian interference in the US election. Obama's goal is clearly to prevent Trump's being sworn in as President -- arguing, how can he be if the Russians in effect chose him as our next President? The campaign being waged suggests that Trump is not very intelligent, and he is a tool of Vladimir Putin. • Donald Trump is also being accused of being indifferent to intelligence. The media have enlisted academic “experts” to bolster their accusations. Professor Joshus Rovner, the John Goodwin Tower Distinguished Chair of International Politics and National Security, stated, “By ignoring intelligence, Trump risks policy tunnel vision.” However, we should remember that Rovner was critical of Trump’s pick of retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his national security advisor because Flynn called the CIA a political arm of the Obama administration. And, retired four-star General Michael V. Hayden, former CIA and NSA director, stated : “To have the President-Elect of the United States simply reject the fact-based narrative that the intelligence community puts together because it conflicts with his a priori assumptions -- wow.” But, again, General Hayden was arguably one of the most prominent critics of Donald Trump’s run for president. He was among 50 national security officials who signed a letter in September warning that Donald Trump was a “risk” to the country’s national security, and just after Trump's victory, Hayden said : “Look, I think it’s fair to say that he’s become the President-Elect by showing anger, by being accusatory, frankly, not being all that fact-based and scapegoating real and imagined enemies. None of that fits into the intelligence picture -- that’s very alien to the way intelligence comes at an issue. And unless he has a conversation with what I call the fact-based, inductive, world-as-it-is people and they have a meaningful dialogue, I fear he’s going to continue to act on this other set of beliefs and that’s going to be very bad for America and for the world.” • The one fact set missing in all these pro-Obama pieces is that the US intelligence community has hardly said a word about the supposed Russian hacking for political purposes. Neither the CIA nor the NSA will so far confirm that the hacker(s) were the Russian government. Military intel is silent. And, excuse me for saying this, but the FBI and DHS -- whose recent records for either successful mission accomplishment or political objectivity do not exist -- are not the US Intelligence community. My guess is that the real IC will be very happy to get rid of Obama and his constant politicizing of their normally objective activities. • And, the last piece of evidence offered this weekend to confirm the Obama claims of Russian hacking that tampered with the presidential election comes from Vermont, and it seems that, despite General Hayden and the Obama cult of worshipping experts, the Vermont fake news shows that Donald Trump may have the facts just about right. Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had "evidence" of what it called the hacking of the Vermont electricity grid. It was a thinly veiled attempt to prove through another "hack" that Russia had indeed hacked into DNC computers and tampered with the presidential election. BUT, on Monday, the Washington Post retracted its story about Russian hackers penetrating the nation’s electricity grid with a virus found in a Burlington, Vermont, electric company laptop. The WP retraction said, “Authorities say there is no indication of that so far [that Russians had penetrated the US electric grid],” according to an editor’s note attached to a corrected version of the story on the paper’s website. The editor's note read : “The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.” The fake WP news of the supposed hack had set off a firestorm of recriminations, with Vermont leaders calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a thug” earlier Saturday, after one of the state’s electric utilities found a virus on the laptop computer. A utility spokesman has also told the Burlington Free Press the laptop was not hooked into the grid. • To paraphrase -- Barack Obama's mother may have raised a fool, but Donald Trump's mother certainly did not.