Follow along with these Washington Post excerpts as we begin to see, more and more, that Russia has Trump by the balls. "No puppet, no puppet," indeed.
Secret CIA Assessment Says Russia Was Trying to Help Trump Win White House by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller (December 9, 2016):
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
Trump, CIA on Collision Course Over Russia’s Role in U.S. Election by David Nakamura and Greg Miller (December 10, 2016):
“Given his proclivity for revenge combined with his notorious thin skin, this threatens to result in a lasting relationship of distrust and ill will between the president and the intelligence community,” said Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
U.S. intelligence officials described mounting concern and confusion about how to proceed in an administration so openly hostile to their function and role. “I don’t know what the end game is here,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said. “After Jan. 20,” the official said, referring to Inauguration Day, “we’re in uncharted territory.”
Pillar added: “Everything Trump has indicated with regard to his character and tendencies for vindictiveness might be worse” than former president Richard Nixon, who also had a dysfunctional relationship with the intelligence community.
Russia’s Next Election Operation - Germany by Anne Applebaum
We know that huge resources have been invested already. In the past decade, Russia has funneled many millions of dollars into its public propaganda arms, the television channel RT and the website Sputnik, which now exist in multiple languages, including German. Less visibly, Russia has invested an equivalent sum in friends: think tanks, businessmen, even politicians. Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer who knew Putin in his KGB days, is managing director of Nord Stream AG, the company that operates the gas pipeline that links Germany and Russia beneath the Baltic Sea. Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, is now the chairman of the shareholders’ committee of that same company.
We also know — or should know — why they could succeed. Long before anyone else, the Russian government spotted deep flaws in Western democracy. It realized that Western politicians could be bribed; that offshoring worked in oligarchs’ favor; that anti-corruption laws weren’t well enforced; that Western media was weak; and that social media had undermined trust in traditional sources of authority. Russian leaders also understood that, thanks to the global reach of the Internet, disinformation was far easier to produce and promote than ever before.
Trump Refuses to Face Reality About Russia by WaPo Editorial Board (December 30, 2016)
Although President Obama's sanctions against Russia for interfering with the U.S. presidential election came late, his action on Thursday reflected a bipartisan consensus that penalties must be imposed for Moscow’s audacious hacking and meddling. But one prominent voice in the United States reacted differently. President-elect Donald Trump said “it’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” Earlier in the week, he asserted that the “whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.”
No, Mr. Trump, it is not time to move on. U.S. intelligence agencies are in agreement about “what is going on”: a brazen and unprecedented attempt by a hostile power to covertly sway the outcome of a U.S. presidential election through the theft and release of material damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The president-elect’s dismissive response only deepens unanswered questions about his ties to Russia in the past and his plans for cooperation with Vladimir Putin.
For his part, Mr. Putin seems to be eagerly anticipating the Trump presidency. On Friday, he promised to withhold retaliatory sanctions, clearly hoping the new Trump administration will nullify Mr. Obama’s acts. Then Mr. Trump cheered on Twitter: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) — I always knew he was very smart!”
Declassified Report Says Putin ‘Ordered’ Effort to Undermine Faith in U.S. Election and Help Trump by Greg Miller and Adam Entous (January 6, 2017)
Russia carried out a comprehensive cyber campaign to sabotage the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and ultimately sought to help elect Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a remarkably blunt assessment released Friday.
The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying that Moscow’s role represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” beyond previous election-related espionage.
Intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and Obama on unconfirmed claims Russia has compromising information on president-elect by Greg Miller, Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Steven Mufson (January 10, 2017)
A senior U.S. official with access to the document said that the allegations were presented at least in part to underscore that Russia appeared to have collected embarrassing information on both major candidates but released only material that might harm Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — a reflection of Russian motivation that bolstered U.S. spy agencies’ conclusion that Moscow sought to help Trump win.
The inclusion of such unsubstantiated allegations in the election report, a development first reported Tuesday by CNN, adds a disturbing new dimension to existing concerns about Russia’s efforts to undermine American democracy.
And it adds another bizarre twist to an already strange election year, injecting new controversy over the Trump team’s relations with Russia just when the president-elect is trying to consolidate and launch his new administration.
If true, the information suggests that Moscow has assembled damaging information — known in espionage circles by the Russian term “kompromat” — that conceivably could be used to coerce the next occupant of the White House. The claims were presented in a two-page summary attached to the full report, an addendum that also included allegations of ongoing contact between members of Trump’s inner circle and representatives of Moscow.
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