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Did Russia really hack the election?
in Politics
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The intelligence community has been quite clear as far as the investigations into possible election-hacking is concerned. The Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement in October of 2016 that concluded that not only has election hacking has occurred, but that the Kremlin is behind the attack (1). Thus, @inc4t, when you claim that media hype is the only justification for the current claims, realize that it is not just the opinion of CNN or other news outlets, but also the determination made by the intelligence community in the US. Specifically, the department said the following:
“Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government.” (1)
While the statement also points out that a nation-state actor would have trouble regarding drastically changing the ballot counts and election results, they also created an Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group to make risk and vulnerability scans of election machines and infrastructure (1). More recent data seems to suggest that Russia’s influence was more pronounced than previously thought as well. Bloomberg in June of 2017 reported on the disclosure of a NSA report that was previously released by The Intercept, as well as the independent investigations in Illinois which found that hackers accessed systems that poll workers were to use, (and in one state an entire campaign finance database,) while also unearthing details of attempted deletion or altering of votes in a total of 39 states (2). Of course, to say that the votes were altered on a massive scale would not necessarily be true, but releasing of information that would be damaging to the Hilary campaign could have occurred, and according to the joint statement referenced before, did in fact occur:
“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.” (1)
Also, it should be mentioned that by stirring fear in the American people by justifying fears of a “rigged” election also has the potential to change votes. By challenging government institution and the idea of a democracy, serious harm is done to the people’s trust.
Muckraking is generally considered fine, but political manipulation by a foreign actor that has opposed the US through illegal annexations, siding with totalitarian leaders, and politically motivated attempts to alter election infrastructure and release of information that would be destructive to political candidates is something that should be considered a direct attack on democracy.
Election hacking is not entirely shocking to those who know of Russia’s tactics to manipulate and harm those who oppose the Putin regime’s actions. In fact, Ukraine is a prime example of these sort of cyber-attacks that has targeted the energy sector, financial institutions, and even transportation infrastructure (3). In other words, this isn’t the first time that Russia has been implicated in these sort of attacks, which doesn’t prove anything on its own, but does cast doubt on Putin and Russian officials who have denied involvement. Also, the information gleaned from the e-mails released by Trump Jr. raises questions of Russian involvement in the election if not through direct hacking of voter systems, but through the “spear-phishing” tactic used to release information that would be damning to the president. The first e-mail sent to Trump Jr. said the following:
“Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary…”
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump…” (4) (5)
The e-mail literally validated the claim that not only was this just a ‘part’ of Russia’s support for Trump, but that there was, in fact, support for Trump from the Kremlin. The response from Trump Sr. was even more troubling. Trump responded by deflecting the issue to Hilary, saying that she would have been a worse president, and saying that “…anyone would have taken that meeting…”
This presents a problem, because he isn’t directly refuting the collusion theory with facts, and seemingly conceding the argument that Russian support was given to the campaign. If this is true, then not only has Trump’s claim of “fake news” in relation to the Trump story a fabrication, but also further proof that he has no evidence to back up his innocence despite his position as the head of the executive branch, with seemingly endless access to information. The administration ceding ground by releasing the e-mails also presents a problem since it begs the question, “what else was being lied about by the Trump administration?”
@Rodinon seems to have a misunderstanding as to what this debate is about. Regardless of whether the election systems were hacked, the fact is that attempts were made to do so, and that information was released through “spear-phishing” which is a tactic used by hackers to gather information from people’s personal e-mails. The willingness to collect this evidence despite the implication on collusion was evident per the emails provided by Trump Jr. Furthermore, the burden of proof for the debate is only to prove that hacking occurred, not that it was widespread enough to constitute a complete victory for Trump by the Russian hacking attempts alone. That is referred to as moving the goal posts, as you put more of the burden of proof on me after I proved the truism of whether election hacking occurred. Since hacking in relation to the 2016 election clearly happened, the topic is proven true.
Also, the idea that hacking the popular vote would have no impact on the electoral college is based in fallacy. Since the election was so close in certain districts, only certain amounts of vote hacking had to occur to make a district red or blue, thus changing the state from voting blue to voting red because of the “winner take all” system. For example, if Florida, a swing state, had elections that were close, all that needed to happen was one large district voting a certain way. Miami is a populated city, so all hackers had to do was make the district including Miami win by a few hundred voters. This is a gross overgeneralization, but the idea sticks. Remember, the electoral college votes by what party won in their individual state. Ergo, if Republicans in Florida won by a slim margin due to a few large districts, all electors in the electoral college would have voted for the winning party despite the slim margin that someone won by in Florida. While there is no guarantee that the “winner take all” system is upheld, it usually is, and the alternative of faithless voters who vote for the other side despite a victory in a certain state is uncommon, with only 2 of these voters existing this election cycle (6). Also, California, a largely democratic state, makes up much of the US population, and their vote for Hilary largely affected the popular vote as well, and yet Trump still won (7).
Finally, “making it stick” is a slow, bureaucratic process that entails an impeachment trial for a president that constantly denies what the media is saying and a polarized, divided congress presiding over the trial. Furthermore, the Chicago Tribune reports in May of this year showing how Trump had asked NSA Director Michael Rogers and the Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, to deny the existence of evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia (8). This sort of practice may have muddied the ability of investigations to continue looking at the links between Russia and Trump as people in power deny evidence exists. Even the reports done by the Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Intelligence Committee are called into question since according to the Washington Post in March of 2017:
“the White House worked with Senate committee chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and House committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), asking them to contact reporters to speak on background to knock down news reports about the investigation.” (9)
Also, keep in mind that Republicans, no matter how many “never-Trumpers” there are, outnumber democrats (10) (11). So, calls for impeachment can be easily challenged by sheer numbers, especially in the house where there is an even larger divide than the senate.
Clearly, the evidence points toward election hacking occurring, regardless of how widespread it is. This has serious implications on the future of elections and the trust that the people has in them.
1. (https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national)
2. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections)
3. (https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/)
4. https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/884789418455953413
5. https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/884789839522140166 If you can’t open the link through twitter, there are news agencies that have published the full transcripts of the e-mails sent and received.
6. (http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/311107-two-texas-electors-abandoned-trump)
7. (http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-california-electors-officially-cast-55-1482188821-htmlstory.html)
8. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-intelligence-chiefs-russia-investigation-20170522-story.html)
9. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/03/14/never-trump-republicans-join-call-for-select-committee-to-investigate-russia-and-trump/?utm_term=.4e455f612754)
10. (https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm)
11. (http://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/)
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HOWEVER. I do agree that if there was hacking, that needs to be addressed, and your point about the popular vote hacking not having to get 51% to be totally successful has merit. Did it actually happen that way? If it did, that should be provable. But even if it did, the President would not be up for impeachment unless there was collusion. Which would have to be proved also. And based on current events, I doubt it.
I think I speak for most of the country when I say, if there really is something fishy going on with Trump and Russia, take care of it. So far we are unconvinced, and we have reached our psychological limits in following this highly detailed story, and it isn't up to us anyway, we hired gov't officials to do this for us. Call me if you find anything. I've got to mow the lawn and fix a leaky sink.
-signed
'murica
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"Americanism not Globalism, will be our credo." ~Donald Trump
"A communist is like a crocodile" ~Winston Churchill
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