russia-hacking

For a president-elect who touts ‘America first,’ Russian hacking poses a problem

Trump may have missed the October announcement. He was preoccupied with the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, which The Post had released the same afternoon.

.. But if standing up to Russian attempts to interfere with American democracy isn’t a foundational principle of an “America first” policy, what is? Trump’s response has suggested a different focus and different philosophy, one that might be described as “Trump first,” rather than “America first.” His instincts appear to be aimed at shielding himself.

Flawed Choices for the State Department

If Mr. Trump places Mr. Tillerson at the State Department and has Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, he will have filled two top national security posts with pro-Russia apologists.

.. Such inexperience could also enhance the clout of the deputy secretary of state, the department’s No. 2 official, a position that reportedly could go to John Bolton, who served as ambassador to the United Nations and under secretary of state for arms control under President George W. Bush.

.. Last year, he wrote in The Times about bombing Iranian nuclear facilities, and he has criticized President Obama for pushing a nuclear deal that has successfully curbed Iran’s program. There is no doubt that Mr. Bolton will work to destroy the deal if he’s given a State Department perch.

.. On Sunday, he made the outrageous accusation that the Russian hacking of the Clinton campaign was a “false flag” operation intended to blame the Russians.

Russian Hackers and American Hacks

The CIA that misjudged Putin for years is now sure of his motives.

Democrats are still in shock from their defeat, and many want to add the Kremlin to FBI Director James Comey, fake news and the Electoral College as excuses that cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory… The new information in these latest stories is less about new intelligence than it is a judgment about Russian motives. Other sources who have seen the intelligence say there’s strong evidence that actors linked to high-level Russian officials hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) website.

.. But other sources say that while it’s clear the Russians were probing the RNC website, it isn’t clear they penetrated it enough to grab emails.

This is in contrast to the months the Russians spent roaming through the DNC site.

.. the Russian motive could have been to gather information to embarrass or blackmail Clinton officials once they were in office. The Kremlin could also merely have wanted to sow confusion and doubt on the election result.

.. If the CIA really does have “high confidence” about Mr. Putin’s motives, this would also be the first time in recent history. These are the same seers who missed the Russian invasion of Crimea, missed the incursion into southern Ukraine, and missed Mr. Putin’s foray into Syria. The intelligence community also claimed “high confidence” in 2008 for its judgment that Iran had suspended its nuclear-weapons program.

.. Rather than dismiss evidence of Russian hacking, Mr. Trump ought to point out that Mr. Obama has done nothing to make Russia pay a price for it. He should also call for the entire story to come out, not merely alleged facts from anonymous sources.

.. But why wait? U.S. intelligence services already know most of what they’re likely to learn. Release the evidence now.

Trump, Mocking Claim That Russia Hacked Election, at Odds with G.O.P.

Mr. Trump, in a statement issued by his transition team on Friday evening, expressed complete disbelief in the intelligence agencies’ assessments.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Mr. Trump’s team said, adding that the election was over and that it was time to “move on.”

.. Mr. Trump, who has taken intelligence briefings only sporadically, is questioning not only analytic conclusions, but also their underlying facts.

.. The New York Times reported that Russia had broken into Republican National Committee computer networks just as they had broken into Democratic ones, but had released documents only on the Democrats.

.. Mr. Trump casts the issue as an unknowable mystery.

.. One question they may want to explore is why the intelligence agencies believe that the Republican networks were compromised while the F.B.I., which leads domestic cyberinvestigations, has apparently told Republicans that it has not seen evidence of that breach. Senior officials say the intelligence agencies’ conclusions are not being widely shared, even with law enforcement.

.. Mr. Nunes’s contention that Mr. Obama was captivated by a desire to “reset” relations with Russia is also notable, because Mr. Trump has said he is trying to do the same — though he is avoiding that term, which was made popular by Mrs. Clinton in her failed effort as secretary of state in 2009.

.. tracking the origin of cyberattacks is complicated. It is made all the harder by the fact that the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. do not want to reveal human sources or technical abilities, including American software implants in Russian computer networks.

.. The Chinese, for instance, penetrated Mr. Obama’s and Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign communications in 2008.

.. Those emails were ultimately published — a step the Russians had never taken before in the United States, though the tactic has been used often in former Soviet states and elsewhere in Europe.

.. But the intelligence agencies had more: They had managed to identify the individuals from the G.R.U. who oversaw the hacking efforts.

.. morphed over time into a much more targeted effort to harm Mrs. Clinton, whom Mr. Putin has long accused of interfering in Russian parliamentary elections in 2011.