So the other shoe has finally dropped, and it’s landed right on top of our Democracy.
Previously, the FBI had maintained that it didn’t know the true motives behind Russia’s hacks on Democrats, but The Washington Post reports that FBI Director James Comey has now acknowledged that the FBI shares the CIA’s conclusions.
“Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” wrote CIA Director John Brennan in a message to employees cited by the Post.
While the FBI and the CIA both agree that Russia was trying to help Trump win the election, they also believe the Kremlin had other goals in mind, such as undermining the confidence of the American electoral system.
So basically it was a twofer. Actually a three-fer. Get revenge on Hillary Clinton for her criticisms of Putin’s regime, install an ally as the new American President and make our electoral system and Democracy itself look like a fraud and joke. What autocratic dictator could see a downside to any of that?
But wait, there’s even more recent revelations from the CIA show that Putin had even more direct reasons to want Trump as the new U.S. President.
First there’s the point the Putin was directly involved in this hack and directed how information would be released.
Despite the loud denials by the RNC they were hacked too, but that information wasn’t released, not yet, indicating that the Russians may be holding onto it as blackmail material.
Citing "senior administration officials," the Times reported that officials believe Russian agents hacked the RNC’s computer systems, but “did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.” The Post reported that “U.S. officials” said that the RNC’s “computer systems were also probed and possibly penetrated by hackers tied to Russian intelligence services, but that it remains unclear how much material--if any--was taken from the RNC.” The newspaper added that, “The lack of a corresponding Republican trove has contributed to the CIA assessment...`that Russia was seeking to elect Trump and not merely to disrupt last month’s presidential election.”
There is also the fact that Putin is secretly the World Richest Man to the tune of anywhere between $85 Billion and $200 Billion mostly by using his government position to gain control of the world’s largest oil companies.
Via Business Insider.
The man who used to be the "Kremlin's banker" says that as long the Russian president Vladimir Putin remains in power, he's the richest person in the world.
“Everything that belongs to the territory of the Russian Federation Putin considers to be his," Sergei Pugachev told The Guardian's Luke Harding. "Everything – Gazprom, Rosneft, private companies. Any attempt to calculate it won’t succeed.
"He’s the richest person in the world until he leaves power.”
Although Putin's exact wealth is unclear, hedge fund manager Bill Browder previously estimated it at $200 billion during an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
(As a reference point, that would make Putin 2.5 times as rich as Bill Gates, who is considerd to be the world's richest man.)
Considering the amount of money we’re talking about we should also note the many problems with Trump’s selection of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson who in 2013 brokered at $500 Billion Oil Deal with Putin, a deal which has been held in stasis due to the massive sanctions that the U.S. help implement on Russia in the wake of their invasion of Ukraine and their annexation of Crimea.
Via ThinkProgress.
So much is explained by Trump’s Secretary of State choice. Media reports now say it will be Rex Tillerson, CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil, which had made a $500 billion oil deal with Putin that got blocked by sanctions.
Stalling the biggest oil deal ever did not just “put Exxon at risk,” as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2014. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained last week this deal was so big it was “expected to change the historical trajectory of Russia.”
This deal could explain why Putin appears to have interfered in U.S. elections in favor of a Trump victory. Recently, “the C.I.A. altered its formal assessment of Russia’s activities to conclude that the government of President Vladimir V. Putin was not just trying to undermine the election,” as the New York Times reported Saturday, “but had also acted to give one candidate an advantage.”
Yeah, $500 Billion could indeed be a very powerful motivation.
Oh, and one more thing, thousands of IDs and secure passwords for the agency that ensures the security of our voting systems were cracked and found on-sale to Eastern European & Middle East Governments by a Russian Hacker.
Via Slate.
The vulnerabilities of the American electoral system don’t stop at email hacks as, Reuters reports, following the Nov. 8 election the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the very federal agency that is charged with testing and certifying state voting systems, was itself hacked. The hack was discovered by a cybersecurity firm that detected someone selling logins to the Election Assistance Commission on the black market. The Russian-speaking hacker had more than 100 logins for commission employees and was attempting to sell them for as little as a few thousands dollars to Middle Eastern countries.
Fortunately it seems that this intrusion occurred after the election, hasn’t been shown to be directly connected to Putin’s hacking efforts and was limited to the login information not the internal election security information.
Thank heaven for small favors. Although that still doesn’t mean that our Election System were “safe” from any and all intrusions, only this particular one.
https://youtu.be/9b-aluFnvTE