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And Russian diplomats "were prepared to publicly call into question the validity of the results" had Secretary Clinton won in November 2016 (see page 33). {aka. They had more “active measures” in the works, assuming Trump lost.}
Here are a few more notable factoids, published in the recent Intelligence Report on Russian Interference — that got washed away in the daily malstroms, otherwise known as Trump on Twitter steroids. (At some point the Media’s infatuated co-dependency with the Tantrum Tweeter, has got to just say No. No more throwing away important news, to cover the patented “Trump Outrage of the Day.”)
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
UNITED STATES SENATE
ON
RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE
IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION
VOLUME 1: RUSSIAN EFFORTS AGAINST ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE
{aka. The “News” Donald Trump doesn’t want us to hear about. Think about. Demand change about.}
pg 4
7. (U) Russian activities demand renewed attention to vulnerabilities in U.S. voting infrastructure. In 2016, cybersecurity for electoral infrastructure at the state and local level was sorely lacking; for example, voter registration databases were not as secure as they could have been. Aging voting equipment, particularly voting machines that had no paper record of votes, were vulnerable to exploitation by a committed adversary. Despite the focus on this issue since 2016, some of these vulnerabilities remain.
pg 8
[REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED] DHS assessed that the searches, done alphabetically, probably included all 50 states, and consisted of research on "general election-related web pages, voter ID information, election system software, and election service companies.[31]
pg 12
(U) Mr. Daniel told the Committee that by late August 2016, he had already personally concluded that the Russians had attempted to intrude in all 50 states, based on the extent of the activity and the apparent randomness of the attempts. "My professional judgment was we have to work under the assumption that they've tried to go everywhere, because they're thorough, they're competent, they're good."[55]
[REDACTED] Intelligence developed later in 2018 bolstered Mr. Daniel's assessment that all 50 states were targeted. [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]
pgs 35-37
V. (U) RUSSIAN INTENTIONS
(U) Russian intentions regarding U.S. election infrastructure remain unclear. Russia might have intended to exploit vulnerabilities in election infrastructure during the 2016 elections and, for unknown reasons, decided not to execute those options. Alternatively, Russia might have sought to gather information in the conduct of traditional espionage activities. Lastly, Russia might have used its activity in 2016 to catalog options or clandestine actions, holding them for use at a later date. Based on what the IC knows about Russia's operating procedures and intentions more broadly, the IC assesses that Russia's activities against U.S. election infrastructure likely sought to further their overarching goal; undermining the integrity of elections and American confidence in democracy.
• (U) Former-Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco told the Committee that "[t]here was agreement [in the IC] that one of the motives that Russia was trying to do with this active measures campaign was to sow distrust and discord and lack of confidence in the voting process and the democratic process."[262]
• [REDACTED] DHS representatives told the Committee that "[w]e see ... Russians in particular obviously, gain access, learn about the environment, learn about what systems are interconnected, probing, the type of intelligence preparation of the environment that you would expect from an actor like the Russians. So certainly the context going forward is a concern of what they might have learned and how much more they know about the systems."[263]
• [REDACTED] Mr. McCabe told the Committee that it seemed to him like "classic Russian cyber espionage.. .. [They will] scrape up all the information and the experience they possibly can," and "they might not be effective the first time or the fifth time, but they are going to keep at it until they can come back and do it in an effective way."[264]
• [REDACTED] Mr. Daniel told the Committee:
While any one voting machine is fairly vulnerable, as has been demonstrated over and over again publicly, the ability to actually do an operation to change the outcome of an election on the scale you would need to, and do it surreptitiously, is incredibly difficult. A much more achievable goal would be to undermine confidence in the results of the electoral process, and that could be done much more effectively and easily. . . . A logical thing would be, if your goal is to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system — which the Russians have a long goal of wanting to put themselves on the same moral plane as the United States ... one way would be to cause chaos on election day. How could you start to do that? Mess with the voter registration databases.[265]
• [REDACTED] Ms. Monaco further echoed that concern:
Well, one of the things I worried about — and I wasn't alone in this — is kind of worst-case scenarios, which would be things like the voter registration databases. So if you're a state and local entity and your voter registration database is housed in the secretary of state's office and it is not encrypted and it's not backed up, and it says Lisa Monaco lives at Smith Street and I show up at my [polling place] and they say 'Well we don't have Ms. Monaco at Smith Street, we have her at Green Street,' now there's difficulty in my voting. And if that were to happen on a large scale, I was worried about confusion at polling places, lack of confidence in the voting system, anger at a large scale in some areas, confusion, distrust. So there was a whole sliding scale of horribles just when you're talking about voter registration databases?[266]
pg 22
1. (U) Russian Access to Election Infrastructure: Illinois
(U) In June 2016, Illinois experienced the first known breach by Russian actors of state election infrastructure during the 2016 election.[146] As of the end of 2018, the Russian cyber actors had successfully penetrated Illinois's voter registration database, viewed multiple database tables, and accessed up to 200,000 voter registration records.[147] The compromise resulted in the exfiltration of an unknown quantity of voter registration data.[148] Russian cyber actors were in a position to delete or change voter data, but the Committee is not aware of any evidence that they did so.[149]
• [REDACTED] DHS assesses with high confidence that the penetration was carried out by Russian actors.[150]
• (U/ [REDACTED]) The compromised voter registration database held records relating to 14 million registered voters, [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. The records exfiltrated included information on each voter's name, address, partial social security number, date of birth, and either a driver's license number or state identification number.[151]
pg 33
(U) The declassified, January 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment also highlighted preparations related to voter fraud, noting that Russian diplomats "were prepared to publicly call into question the validity of the results" and that "pro-Kremlin bloggers had prepared a Twitter campaign, #DemocracyRIP, on election night in anticipation of Secretary Clinton's victory, judging from their social media activity."[245]
Mueller had it right went he talked about the active threats still in the works to attack our next election. If this bi-partisan Committee report doesn’t sound the alarm bells, probably nothing will.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers and diplomats are still prepared to sow distrust, and chaos in the next election. They’ve already done the ground work. And Trump is STILL their useful and willing idiot:
The more America is diminished on the world stage, the more Russia fills in the void.
And if they can get the idiot selected TWICE — it would prove it’s not an aberration … That American democracy, of by and for the People, truly can Rest in Peace.
Our heyday of being the shining beacon on the hill, will be over.
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It’s only your ability and motivation to Vote, they’re messing with ...
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