2016 Russian Hackings Master Thread

I went through past threads to see the best place to post comments about the current hearing but found that the continued dialog about this issue runs from thread to thread. All of the threads appear to suggest 1 conclusion over another. Master Thread seems like a good idea particularly if it does not speculate on one side or another. However mods or everyone else, feel free to lock or let die if you don't think so.

03/20/17: FBI Director Comey & National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers testify to congressional intelligence committee.



Is anyone watching right now? First, this is an extremely partisan QA direction by both sides of the council and should show that an independent council is needed. It was obvious that there was not a consensus in direction on what questions and which conclusions were desired by various members. Granted, you want to cover the entire spectrum of issues within a grand investigation however the refusal to follow up with certain comments that undercut what the rep was fishing for was extremely disappointing.

There is a lot of questions that can not be answered because an investigation is ongoing and the refusal to answer a specific question should not suggest any conclusion. It's obvious that questioning these two men is very pre-mature but it was still a good watch with a lot of interesting information. However, any liberal or conservative that comes out saying that this endorses whether something happened or didn't happen is kidding themselves. However, I will identify times when I feel like you can make some conclusions but I'll precede it with (IMO).

A big takeaway that an investigation is currently underway to find if their were illegal connections between (specifically) the Trump campaign and that it began in June 2016. However, there is no clear catalyst to what triggers an investigation like this and (OF COURSE) an investigation does not suggest a conclusion one way or another. (IMO) this questions the notion that this is just an obsession from liberals to fuel this issue particularly since the decision to start the investigation began last summer.


Do not expect any conclusion to how any hacking affected the outcome of the election. The nature of this speculation is not being investigated in anyway and the final conclusion should not suggest that Trump won the election if he had illegal collusion with the Russian Government. This is about conspiracy and collusion between private citizens to commit felonies to other American citizens. The POTUS account was live tweeting and the asserted in a tweet that Rogers and Comey said that the hacks did not influence the election which led to them clarifying that that is not something they are investigating. reached in one of the tweets was refuted by Comey and Rogers refuted when a representative brought that up. They would not call it a lie but they did pre-empt their answer by saying, "We haven't read it [the tweet]. Pretty funny considering how short it is.

Comey and did conclude that the primary goal by the Russians was to hurt the Clinton campaign and not necessarily to help Trump win. The Russians thought Trump could win after the GOP convention but the Russian didn't believe Trump could win in the couple months before the election. This (imo) doesn't seem very relevant. Comey's reply used a lighthearted reaction that was a a nice break in seriousness. “I think it’s 2 close related sides of the same coin. To put it in a homely metaphor, I hate the New England Patriots and no matter who they play, I’d like them to lose. And so I’m at the same time rooting against the Patriots and hoping their opponent beats them because there is only 2 teams on the field. But what the intelligence community concluded was, early on the hatred for Ms. Clinton was all the way along. When Mr Trump became the nominee, there was some sense that it would be great if he could win, it would be great if we could help him but we need to hurt her no matter what. And then it shifted to, she has no chance. Let’s just focus on undermining her."


One thing that a very partisan series of questions from a GOP rep led to an answer saying that the Russians attempted to hack organizations from all over the political spectrum. They gained access to GOP organizations but did not release that information. It's disappointing there was no follow up. I know it seems like I'm making a point here and I don't deny that. I will admit again that the exact intention by the Russians is irrelevant but there is still evidence that actions were taken to do more damage to Clinton than Trump even if they were mostly doing it in order to create problems for Clinton during her eventual presidency.




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How could that be your two "big" takeaways? It was around a 4 hour Q+A and how much did they mention Clinton's investigation by the FBI for her email server? I listened to the entire thing except for the 30 min or so that ran at the same time of Spicer's press conference. I mean, that wasn't remotely what any of the reps were talking about. I'm not trying to be a liberal blindly defending Clinton here but as an impartial observer I don't understand how that is what you could have gotten out of this.

The part that I think is questionable about the Hillary investigation was why there was an announcement a week before the election that they found more emails and were looking into them and not an announcement that they they were 4-5 months into an investigation into Trump's campaign into collusion with a foreign power to commit felonies within the US. However, I honestly don't give a **** about that. The election is over and I still am not really convinced that the result of the hacks won Trump the election. If you asked most of his voters about why they voted (IMO) they would cite their belief that he won the argument about who could create more jobs (which is 100% true even though I disagree with his points) and that she had her own email server.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. Clinton (IMO) was the most qualified and would have done the best job however it's very obvious now that she was not the most electable candidate for a variety of reasons. It's sad that other candidates like O'Malley weren't given an equal voice in the nomination process. Trump's win of the GOP nomination was (IMO) a result of GOP candidates like Romney and the Bushs not creating policy that benefited rural America and those voters had become disillusioned with the party. I think it's fair to say that Trump's policy differences with the GOP party put him more in line with a 3rd party candidate however that is just an opinion. If I had to pick a GOP candidate then I would have liked to see Jeb but it's obvious he wasn't electable. Anyway, agree that it was sad to see.

 

I adamantly disagree. There was no evidence presented that their was collusion AND there was no assertion that they haven't found information. Liberals need to be fair and be willing to move on for Russia if the FBI does not find that extensive laws were broken.

Yep. Barbara Bush once said that the country should move on from the Clintons and the Bushs and she was right. I am very glad to see Clinton and Obama have left the public radar. I think their hope is to allow new leadership for the democrats. It's still not clear who that might be. I don't really care for the new DNC chair. I really like Rep. Joaquín Castro from San Antonio but he's playing it very slow which is probably a good idea. He could be your next Obama in that he could get a lot of national attention by winning a senate seat and using that as a springboard for president. However, I'm not saying it's likely for Castro to win the Texas senate spot in 2018. I just think he's someone you keep an eye out on. The absolute best case scenario is for the Democrats to take the house and pick their own Paul Ryan to beat the speaker.

Again, this is one of the few aspects of life that I agree with you : )

 

I think GOP reps are protecting themselves which I think was completely predictable for a House committee. I think there is something natural about that which is why they have no power to impeach a president. All they can do is propose it to the senate.

What do you think they specially dropped that was horrifying? I think history will give the GOP a pass if they can wrap this investigation up and attempt to push Trump out of office in this term. If he gets away with it given clear evidence of collusion then I think history will come down on them. It's only a few months into Trump's presidency and you are already seeing GOP congress members breaking from him.