In the past few Days we’ve seen the extraordinary spectacle of Trump’s repeated refusal to accept the findings that the Russians were behind the hack of the DNC . In deed our president elect seems to think self-confessed rapist Julia Assange is more credible than all the men working in our intelligence services on this question. And then this morning we saw Trump get his “welcome to Washington, bitch” moment when he discovered the CIA wasn’t going to take this lying down and leaked a report to the Washington Post that made it clear the CIA not only knew that the Russians HAD hacked the DNC servers and passed the intel to Assange, but they knew WHICH Russians, SPECIFICALLY carried out the transfer and how.
Further, the report reveal the CIA had intercepted communications between two Russian intelligence officials high-fiving each other over the success of their op. No while that may have been a satisfying comeuppance of Trump on the surface it was actually a sign of how badly damaged this country will be after four years of Trump.
if you understand the intel community and how it works. This little battle between Trump and the CIA show that Trump is ALREADY hurting America in some serious ways. In a normal world if the CIA says : Hey Russians hacked the DNC and we can prove it. A competent president might ask them PRIVATELY how they know what they know, but then leave it at that in public. Donny "Goofus" Trump instead decided to publicly call bullshit on them, without any facts on his side.
The CIA felt this was important enough that they needed to defend themselves and their conclusions. So, in response to Trump some CIA guy (likely close to the top) released the follow up stories we read today. Now this is all well and good one one level. It bolsters their case and makes it harder for Congress, even THIS Congress to ignore.
HOWEVER, to do this, the CIA was required to pull the curtain back on a part of the the "holiest of holies", which is to say "sources and methods" intel. Basically them talking about how they got their information. As you can imagine this is most jealously guarded secret an intelligence agency can have. Once a source is known, a source is “burned” and will never be able to produce useful intel again (indeed, once you know , THEY know, you have to regard any info coming through that channel as suspect and likely intentionally planted. ) This is why they usually NEVER reveal this kinda of information, unless under a direct presidential order.
Think of what we lost when the CIA had to leak that information to bolster their credibility: 1) The two Russian officials now know we can intercept their messages. So, not anymore, they’ll either stop using the channel or boost their encryption and that’s source is now “dark” for us. 2) whoever they used to contact Assange won’t be used again, now that they know we have have eyes on them. So again, a potentially valuable future source of info was burned because Trump is a petulant child who won’t accept what is screamingly obvious to everyone else. In other words Russia is ALREADY getting dividend from its efforts to elect Trump and he has’t even taken office yet
And for those of you in the “What difference does it make? Hillary would have lost anyway” camp. Let me suggest to you that the issue is NOT that the Russians hacked the DNC and released their email, that was despicable but not the thing that should alarm you. The issue is that those Same CIA sources that confirm the hack are almost certain Russia ALSO hacked the RNC and Trump’s private campaign servers. and THOSE emails they did NOT release. Meaning that a hostile foreign government has an enormous trove of potential blackmail material concerning our incoming president and his chief of staff. And whatever you think of the election, THAT matters