Intel Report on Russia is as Close as it Comes to Absolute Certainty

By Ned Carmody

Ned Carmody served as a case officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations for nearly 28 years. His career included interagency assignments to NSA, the FBI's National Joint Terrorism Task Force, the U.S. Army War College and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Nearly everyone now accepts that Russia attempted to interfere with the U.S. electoral process with the aim of harming Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Even President Donald Trump has grudgingly admitted that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. But for a long, long time – far too long – Trump repeatedly dismissed the evidence, saying the intelligence agencies had no idea where the attacks came from, that “it could have been a 14-year-old kid sitting on a bed somewhere.” Trump continued to repeat such comments long after he must have known better.

At the recent G-20 summit, Trump again seemed to back away from the findings of the intelligence community by alluding to the possible involvement of countries other than Russia. As numerous commentators pointed out, how could the U.S. president press Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue, when Trump himself did not seem to accept the evidence? Any lingering doubts about the Russian origin of the hacking during the 2016 campaign should be put to bed.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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