Journalism is not like war: In war the victors get to write the history; in today’s journalism, the losers write it.
President-elect Donald Trump on post-election victory tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Dec. 16, 2016. (Michael Vadon, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
Russiagate continues to survive like a science fiction monster resilient to bullets.
The latest effort at rehabilitating it is an interview by Adam Rawnsley in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine of one Michael van Landingham, an intelligence analyst who is proud of having written the first draft of the cornerstone “analysis” of Russiagate, the so-called Intelligence Community Assessment.
The ICA blamed the Russians for helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was released two weeks before Trump assumed office. The thoroughly politicized assessment was an embarrassment to the profession of intelligence.
Worse, it was consequential in emasculating Trump to prevent him from working for a more decent relationship with Russia.
In July 2018, Ambassador Jack Matlock (the last U.S. envoy to the Soviet Union), was moved to write his own stinging assessment of the “Assessment” under the title: “Former US Envoy to Moscow Calls Intelligence Report on Alleged Russian Interference ‘Politically Motivated.’”
In January 2019, I wrote the following about the ICA:
“A glance at the title of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which was not endorsed by the whole community) — ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections’ — would suffice to show that the widely respected and independently-minded State Department intelligence bureau should have been included. State intelligence had demurred on several points made in the Oct. 2002 Estimate on Iraq, and even insisted on including a footnote of dissent.
Clapper: Showing handpicked evidence? (Pete Souza, White House)
James Clapper, then director of national intelligence who put together the ICA, knew that all too well. So he evidently thought it would be better not to involve troublesome dissenters, or even inform them what was afoot.
Similarly, the Defense Intelligence Agency should have been included, particularly since it has considerable expertise on the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency, which has been blamed for Russian hacking of the DNC emails.
But DIA, too, has an independent streak and, in fact, is capable of reaching judgments Clapper would reject as anathema. …
With help from the Times and other mainstream media, Clapper, mostly by his silence, was able to foster the charade that the ICA was actually a bonafide product of the entire intelligence community for as long as he could get away with it. After four months it came time to fess up that the ICA had not been prepared, as Secretary Clinton and the media kept claiming, by ‘all 17 intelligence agencies.’
In fact, Clapper went one better, proudly asserting — with striking naiveté — that the ICA writers were ‘handpicked analysts’ from only the F.B.I., C.I.A., and NSA. He may have thought that this would enhance the ICA’s credibility. It is a no-brainer, however, that when you want handpicked answers, you better handpick the analysts. And so he did.”
[See: The January 2017 ‘Assessment’ on Russiagate]
Buried in Annex B of the ICA is this curious disclaimer:
“Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents. … High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”
Small wonder, then, that a New York Times report on the day the ICA was released noted:
“What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission…”
Burying Obama’s Role
F.B.I. Director James Comey briefs President Barack Obama in June 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza/Flickr)
Mainstream journalism has successfully buried parts of the Russiagate story, including the role played by former President Barack Obama.
Was Obama aware of the “Russian hack” chicanery? There’s ample evidence he was “all in.” More than a month before the 2016 election, while the F.B.I. was still waiting for the findings of cyber-firm CrowdStrike, which the Democratic Party had hired in place of the F.B.I. to find out who had breached their servers, Obama told Clapper and Dept. of Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson not to wait.
So with the election looming, the two dutifully published a Joint Statement on Oct. 7, 2016:
“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. … “
Obama’s role was revealed in 2022 when the F.B.I. was forced to make public F.B.I. emails in connection with the trial of fellow Russiagate plotter, Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann
Clapper and the C.I.A., F.B.I., and NSA directors briefed Obama on the ICA on Jan. 5, 2017. That was the day before they gave it personally to President-elect Donald Trump, telling him it showed the Russians helped him win, and that it had just been made public.
On Jan. 18, 2017, at his final press conference, Obama used lawyerly language in an awkward attempt to cover his derriere:
“The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked.”
So we ended up with “inconclusive conclusions” on that admittedly crucial point … and, for good measure, use of both words — “hacking” and “leaked.”
The tale that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was then disproved on Dec. 5, 2017 by the head of CrowdStrike’s sworn testimony to Congress. Shawn Henry told the House Intelligence committee behind closed doors that CrowdStrike found no evidence that anyone had successfully hacked the DNC servers.
But it is still widely believed because The New York Times and other Democrat-allied corporate media never reported on that testimony when it was finally made public on May 7, 2020.
Enter Michael van Landingham
Rolling Stone’s article on July 28 about van Landingham says he is still proud of his role as one of the “hand-picked analysts” in drafting the discredited ICA.
The piece is entitled: “He Confirmed Russia Meddled in 2016 to Help Trump. Now, He’s Speaking Out.” It says: “Trump viewed the 2017 intel report as his ‘Achilles heel.’ The analyst who wrote it opens up about Trump, Russia and what really happened in 2016.”
Without ever mentioning that the conclusions of the ICA were proven false, by Henry’s testimony and the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that found no evidence of Trump-Russia “collusion,” Rolling Stone says:
“The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), dubbed ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections,’ was one of the most consequential documents in modern American history. It helped trigger investigations by the House and Senate intelligence committees and a special counsel investigation, and it fueled an eight-year-long grudge that Trump has nursed against the intelligence community.”
Rawnsley writes in Rolling Stone the following as gospel truth, without providing any evidence to back it up.
“When WikiLeaks published a tranche of [John] Podesta’s emails in late October, the link between the Russian hackers and the releases became undeniable. The dump contained the original spear phishing message that Russian hackers had used to trick Podesta into coughing up his password. News outlets quickly seized on the email, crediting it for what it was: proof that the Russians were behind the campaign.”
Because Rawnsley didn’t tell us, it’s not clear how this “spear phishing message” provides “undeniable” proof that Russia was behind it. Consortium News has contacted Rawnsley to provide more detail to back up his assertion.
Wall of RollingStone covers in the magazine’s New York office, 2009. (The Buried Life, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and close friend of Julian Assange, suggested to Scott Horton on Horton’s radio show in 2016 that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak came from two different sources, neither of them the Russian government.
“The Podesta emails and the DNC emails are, of course, two separate things and we shouldn’t conclude that they both have the same source,” Murray said. “In both cases we’re talking of a leak, not a hack, in that the person who was responsible for getting that information out had legal access to that information.”
Reading between the lines of the interview, one could interpret Murray’s comments as suggesting that the DNC leak came from a Democratic source and that the Podesta leak came from someone inside the U.S. intelligence community, which may have been monitoring John Podesta’s emails because the Podesta Group, which he founded with his brother Tony, served as a registered “foreign agent” for Saudi Arabia.
“John Podesta was a paid lobbyist for the Saudi government,” Murray noted. “If the American security services were not watching the communications of the Saudi government’s paid lobbyist in Washington, then the American security services would not be doing their job. … His communications are going to be of interest to a great number of other security services as well.”
Leak by Americans
Horton then asked, “Is it fair to say that you’re saying that the Podesta leak came from inside the intelligence services, NSA [the electronic spying National Security Agency] or another agency?”
“I think what I said was certainly compatible with that kind of interpretation, yeah,” Murray responded. “In both cases they are leaks by Americans.”
William Binney, a former U.S. National Security Agency technical director, told Consortium News this regarding Rolling Stone‘s assertion about the Podesta emails:
“Saying something does not make it so. There is no evidence the phishers or hackers were Russian. In today’s networks, you really have to have the underlying internet protocol (IP nr) or device medium access control (MAC nr) to show the routing to/from [sending and receiving] devices to show exfiltration plus trace route evidence to show if that data went any further.
[In other words, you would need the unique computer addresses of the hacked and the hacker and anyone they may have relayed it to, if it were a hack.]
[Rawnsley] gives none of this type of data. So, until he provides this type of data, I view his statements as an opinion and not worth much at all.
The whole world-wide network has to have these numbers to get data from point A to point B in the world. No one (NSA included) has shown this data going to Wikileaks for publication. The 5EYES have Wikileaks under cast iron cover/analysis and would know this and report it.”
“There is one more aspect that’s important to take into account,” Binney added. “It’s the network log. This contains a record of every instruction sent on the network along with addresses for the sender and receiver. It’s held for a period of time according to storage allocated to it.”
Binney said:
“So, if there’s a hack, then the instruction to achieve the hack is in the log. Remember, Crowd Strike did the analysis of the DNC server all through this time and never talked about the network log. Now, Podesta’s computer does not have a network log, but the DNC and worldwide network providers do.”
Binney in 2015. (Nicoleon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Binney told CN that he proposed automated analysis of the worldwide log for the NSA in 1992, “but they refused it as it would expose all the money and program corruption in NSA contracts.”
Binney said he was putting that function into the ThinThread program in 1999/2000 that he was developing for the NSA, but the agency “removed it in 2001 after 9/11.”
A report by the private cybersecurity firm SecureWorks in June 2016 assessed with “moderate confidence” that a group identified as APT28, nicknamed “Fancy Bear” among other names “operating from the Russian Federation … gathering intelligence on behalf of the Russian government” was behind the Podesta phishing, though as Binney points out, the NSA found no such evidence, when it would have had to, had Russia done it.
The name “Fancy Bear” of the alleged hackers from GRU, the Russian defense intelligence agency, incidentally, was coined by Dmitri Alperovich, the anti-Putin Russian co-founder of CrowdStrike.
“This whole Russiagate affair was a concoction of the DNC, the Clintons, the F.B.I. etc. and none of them have produced any specific basic evidence to support their assertions,” Binney said. “The idea that the word ‘Bear’ implies Russia is about the level of technical intellect we are dealing with here.”
Binney said these are the key technical questions that still need to be answered:
1. What are the IP and/or MAC numbers involved? And, what are the allocations of these numbers by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (network number allocation authority)?
2. What are the trace routes of the hacked packets going across the worldwide network?
3. What instructions are in the network log indicating data exfiltration of data?
4. Are there any other specific technical aspects that are relevant to a potential hack? No opinions or guesses, that’s not factual evidence of anything beyond the writers biases.”
Binney said in email:
“Even if you assume the Russians did the hack and have the DNC/Podesta emails, you still have to show the transfer of these emails to Wikileaks to know who really did the deed. So far, no one has evidence the emails were sent to Wikileaks.
Most importantly, Julian Assange publicly said it was not the Russians. Kimdotcom said he helped others (not the Russians) to get data to Wikileaks. Craig Murray talked about physical transfer of data. These statements by people involved in WikiLeaks is clearly consistent with the technical evidence I and others have assembled.”
Binny said that “until such time as those others produce specific technical evidence for peer review and validation (like we have), they are just pushing sludge up an inclined plane with a narrow squeegee hoping they can get it over the top and accepted by all.”
Binney noted that the ancient Greek school of sophism called this the fallacy of repetition. “That’s where they keep repeating a falsehood over and over again till it is believed (it helps when they say the same thing from many different directions especially by people in positions of authority),” Binney said.
So the head of CrowdStrike testifies that there’s no evidence anyone hacked the DNC and according to Binney and Murray, there is no definitive proof that Russia was behind the Podesta phishing expedition either. WikiLeaks maintains that a state actor was not the source of either.
And yet the Russiagate myth persists. It is useful in so many ways for those in the U.S. who still want to ratchet up even more tension with Russia (as though Ukraine isn’t enough) and for a political party to perhaps again explain away an election loss if it happens in November.
Thanks to Bill Binney and two other VIPS very senior NSA “alumni”, and the detailed charts and other data revealed by Edward Snowden, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) was able to publish a memorandum on Dec. 12, 2016 that, based on technical evidence, labeled the Russian hacking allegations “baseless.” The following July we issued a similar VIPS memo, with the title asking the neuralgic question, “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?” The question lingers.
I have now posted an item on X to call attention to this latest Russiagate indignity.
I cannot escape the conclusion that journalism is not like war: In war the victors get to write the history; in today’s journalism, the losers — who get it wrong — get to write it.
O Tempora, O Mores!
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year C.I.A. career he supervised intelligence analysis as chief of Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, as editor/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief, as a member of the Production Review Staff and as chair of National Intelligence Estimates. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Michael Parentti wrote that Lord Acton was wrong. Those who learn from History repeat what they gain from it.
Keep up the good work, Mr. McGovern! A rational account of the main claims about “Russiagate” needs to be repeated and repeated!
In a century, “Russiagate” will look as nonsensical to historians as Leo Taxil’s fantasy fiction about Freemasons and. The real question in either case is, why were so many people so eager to believe obvious nonsense?
Thank you, Ray. When we can acknowledge our vises, we can learn from that history and fix them. The R&D is about as dead as corporate R&D today. Pun intended.
“the time [again] is out of joint – o cursed spite!”
brave journalists, all born with brains
and backbones, now must set it write.
thank you, ray mc govern,
for your contributions toward sanity.
without them i might have bordered on the insane,
given the abysmally t.ruthless media coverage
current events get in my EU country …
Oh sure, we lessers should believe the D party elite. Hack hack hack! “Hack” is also an old term for political functionaries who serve their party no matter what.
The Ds are about as reliable on this as they are in their current claims to care about us working people. As if our attention span were so short we’ve forgotten how they ditched the New Deal and embraced financial deregulation. And that they’re neolibs in thrall to an econ system considering devastation of human and natural resources to be irrelevant externalities. As if we’re unaware that “basket of deplorables” holds all of us declasse’ expendables.
When the Russiagate disinfo began to circulate, it wasn’t easy to figure out where the truth lie. Or what percent of any news item was truth or lie. Russia = bad…maybe, but this is an old go-to theme in western Euro/US history and therefore questionable. Then factor in how the Biden Dept. of State is now openly run by Cheney trained neocons–fans of empire by any means. Including endless wars. Never mind how this relates to neglected infrastructure. Or how privatizing what have traditionally been military tasks is related to lucrative corporate profiteering.
I realize this would be shocking to the Ivy D superior class, but some of us blue collar peasants can read, write, and think. Furthermore, because of internet rumors and servile media, we’ve had to learn about logical fallacies, about noticing what isn’t there, and about asking who benefits by whatever is being pushed.
Given all the reasons I listed above, it sure seems reasonable that Ray McGovern is one of the few telling the truth.
Thank you Ray for your article, which we readers need! All the best always! your friend Carolyn aka Cookie
Thanx Ray for reminding everybody of the insanity what is Russiagate. What I find all so amusing (?) is – out in front of god and the gang – non FARA registered AIPAC who is a creature of the Israeli government spent over $14M to defeat a couple of anti-Israel US congresscritters and nobody said Boo! Nobody suggested that AIPAC was trying to manipulate US elections, although they were. Nobody suggested that AIPAC register under FARA allthough according to the rules, they should. Kinda makes you wonder.
Thank you, Ray, what more can be said. The title of your writing says it all. Keep writing. Your words validate exactly what we’ve thought since 2016…just another power hungry political scam.
Good article, but two things are annoying me at the moment, the over use of the word tranche,” tranche of [John] Podesta emails” “first tranche of Ukraines (Russias) peace fund” etc the other is the bug in whatever software these Democrat journalists used ending up with spelling mistakes where it was probably correct to start with.
I know I’m being pedantic but if this bunch of grifters can’t even be bothered to check there written word I can be sure the content is mostly nonsense as well.
Good one
I never understood the appeal of Russiagate. Mrs. Clinton lost the election because she was too obviously just another Republican, lightly disguised!
Exactly. As I said in my main comment, “as if we’re unaware that ‘basket of deplorables’ holds all of us declasse’ expendables.” The elitist Ivy Ds let their fatcat sentiments out of the bag with that one.
How grateful this CN reader is to have this prophetic investigative
journalist deepen our remembrance of how far we’ve descended
into a police state–It was Ray McGovern who warned, back when
the Russiagate deception was being advanced by the FBI, just how
dangerous it is in a democracy to have such a “politicized”
law enforcement institution policing your government.
And behold! Just yesterday the FBI swarms into the house of Scott
Ritter, former Marine colonel, UN weapons inspector [and Consortium News columnist], declaring in 2003, that Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction.
Hold on there, that truth is treason to a war psychotic military-industrialized
United States of Israel
Thanks CN editors, I forgot that, inspite of
always looking forward to his writings
Thank you, Ray, for your work on this.
The most significant aspect of the “Russia-gate” story continues to be ignored and poorly investigated. In the April 10th, 2023 issue of “The Nation” James Bamford outlines how it was Israeli operatives that that approached the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016 with information that could be beneficial to his election. The information regarding Clinton & Russia was was offered to Trump in exchange for US support of two future proposals beneficial to Israel. One, that the US should recognize Jerusalem as the Capital of the Jews (Israel). Two, the US would scrap the US/Iran Nuclear agreement. Likely, these details of “Russia-gate” were uncovered in subsequent government investigations but concealed from the American public’s view in heavily redacted reports….while the media has turned our attention towards the evil empire of Russia….. killing two birds with one stone.
To connect the dots….when Trump was elected these two conditions were met….and Vladimir Putin has since become public enemy #1.
@eric
i was about to comment along the same line[s].
it seems likely that israel helped #45 to become potus and
he swiftly returned the favor by moving the US embassy to
jerusalem …
as to public enemy #1:
in 1997, political consultant zbigniew brzezinsky published his book
“the grand chessboard. american primacy and its geostrategic imperatives”,
where he laid out that ukraine should be part of europe by 2010 – in order
to weaken russia. w. selenski’s predecessor, btw, did NOT want to join NATO.
so he had to go …
the USSR/russia have been north america’s public enemies #1 for decades.
much to my dismay and to the detriment of my EU country where, in 2026,
US state of the art hypersonic ‘dark eagle’ missiles will be deployed. *sigh!*
Thanks, Ray. Happy you have addressed the absurd trope masquerading as journalism in the Rolling Stone article. I hope CN or you have sent 2 copies to the editors of Rolling Stone, one for themselves and one for van Landingham
One important thing for us all to keep in mind as backround: as you have long ago, and often pointed out, Russian leaders (and especially Putin) want opposing governments to be headed by rational and stable leaders. So, to think that the Russians would prefer “off the wall” Trump over Clinton (yes, even vitriolic, Putin-hating Clinton) is absurd, further indication of ignorance of Russia. Note that, before Biden bowed out of the presidential race, Putin said that he would prefer even a less-than-with-it Biden over Trump in the next election.
For those who wish to learn more about the amazing William Binney, check out a wonderful biographical documentary, “A Good American”, which you can find on Youtube.
With admiration for my NOT Decaying, NOT Decrepit, NOT Deceitful (and much older :-) )brother Ray,
Larry McGovern
And my admiration for your brother’s address to the UN in this video. I remember when i first saw it, how i commented on his lovely voice and you replied with some quipp i now can’t remember. But his last words in this video (after his song) are the most precious and poignant:
Xxxx//m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPayVDfePgc
Thanks very much, Ray, for the thorough recap of events. I was beginning to lose my grip on them.
Sorry you have to keep tamping down the smoldering deceit of Russiagate, Ray McG. But you do it so wicked concise. Still, it’s like that underground coal fire up there in northern PA that never dies but releases smoke & noxious fumes for years. It seems nothing is as it once was. I know that’s too broad to be completely true. But it certainly is for Rolling Stone. It’s not only embedded with moss but has come to rest in a dismal swamp & become tangled up in blue-green algae, that is.
Russiagate and the whole idea that Russia interferes in our elections reminds me of the Halloween movies in which villain Michael Myers never dies.
Russia absolutely does meddle in American elections. So does Israel. So does Iran. So does Great Britain. And Germany. And on and on and on. And America meddles in everyone else’s elections. That’s the way it has been ever since the CIA and KGB were going back and forth during the Cold War, and even a few incidents before that.
The lie of Russiagate was that Russian meddling was something new and uncommon (rather than part and parcel of every American election), that Russia was the only country doing it (manifestly false), and that America would never do such a thing (LOL).
@steve
how/why would germany [need to] interfere
in US elections? germany is a US vassal state.
Economic reasons. To push back against automotive sector tariffs. The same reason the USA interferes in it’s allies elections.
The Kremlin did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election, period. To imply anything else is to be a misinformed liar. The Kremlin knew in 2016 that Trump wouldn’t be much better than Killary. Russian officials knew that regardless of who was elected prez, the men wearing black suits and carrying briefcases truly run the show.
Goebbels thought he was writing history, until 1945. But his version, where Poland attacked Germany and the patriotic Germans only responded in self-defense by invading Poland … that’s not what is found in history books today. If you are losing a war, your ability to fake the history and create your own reality has a decidedly short life-span, which only lasts until a People’s Army reaches your bunkers.
I wish people would finally realize it …. journalism is Dead! Dead, nada, deceased, no more, departed, fini, finished, the end. And has been for sometime. They had to take down the corpse from its perch because it was stinking and bits were dropping off to the NYT spread across the bottom of the cage.
What is called ‘journalism’ is really corporate mind-control. What is bizarre is that the mind-controlled still have this strange belief in this old idea called ‘journalism’ that has not been seen in America since Reagan and Clinton destroyed the old system and created the new one where a small number of corporations control everything you see, read and hear …. until you finally have enough sense to press the OFF switch.
Interestingly, a person becomes far better informed about the world the second they turn the Journalists OFF. That’s when the fog begins to lift, and you realize that instead of enlightening, what the journalists are doing is running a giant fog machine.
“Russiagate” was very informative, as long as you didn’t let others tell you what to think. Lovely Hillary faced a crisis, she’d rigged the 2016 primaries to guarantee her victory, but now it was leaking out, as anyone except a Clinton or a Bush would expect. Now she was in trouble, as she could not take Bill’s place in the White House without the Progressives whom she’d just robbed, cheated and denied democracy. So, she blamed Russia. Lovely Hillary was willing to raise tensions with a nuclear power for her own personal political gain and profit. Like I said, Russiagate was very revealing about both Hillary and the rest of the top Democrats. Greed and Power are so important to them, that they are willing to drive the world to Doomsday to grab more. And the Progressives are either dumb enough or greedy enough to play along, and are still chanting Four More Years as if we have that long left.
As the Doomsday Clock goes below One, thanks for printing this piece about how we got there.
In Ray’s final conclusion I would say the losers of war also write the history so long as they control the narrative at home. The USA is a master of this. What is remarkable is how blatantly history is written in real time. It is time for Rolling Stone to go into the dust heap of life. This is truly pathetic.
Indeed. If you’re a reporter who repeats and enhances establishment narrative, it doesn’t matter if you have no facts on your side. You are doing God’s work and are to be commended, venerated, and rewarded both financially and reputationally for your efforts.
Unlike some of my more gullible friends, I actually read this idiotic “assessment” back when it was released. That’s all it took to immediately call into question the basis of “Russiagate”: actually reading the junk these charlatans in the so-called intelligence community publish as evidence. It was a con you could spot a mile away if you actually engage with their assertions instead of assuming their credibility at face value.
I, too, read that “assessment” at the time of its publication. Any reader at all whose critical thinking ability had not been erased via the years of sweeping propaganda and stoking of tribal affinity would have seen right away just how bad – sophomoric, even – it was. While full of language impugning Russia and linking her (and Putin) to Trump, there was no real evidence provided. Just statements like, “We assess that…” Russia hacked servers and leaked communications to benefit Trump. Not one real shred of evidence or statement suggesting they had it.
As Ray has long complained, the Intel services- CIA and others – had some time ago lost their way, effectively changing their modus operandi from merely providing actual intelligence (facts and analysis) to the President, to that of pushing political agendas. This has led, naturally, to selectivity of what information is given and the concordant use of disinformation. And they push narratives to the greater public through their mouthpieces in the MSM, who will publish disinformation as gospel, citing, “anonymous Intelligence sources”.
Ray, Bill Binney, et al are the best beginning steps of antidotes to this dysfunctional, anti-democratic situation. We probably need a “Defund the Spooks” campaign! (And probably, while we’re at it, a “Defund the MIC” movement as well.
Loosers rool!