CIA wrong on Russia and Clinton leaks, says James Clapper’s office

Further evidence of the political motivation behind the whole CIA claim that Russia was behind the DNC and Podesta leaks has come from an unexpected quarter – James Clapper’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) – which supervises the work of all of the US’s 17 intelligence agencies.

Speaking anonymously to Reuters, three ODNI officials have trashed the CIA claim that Russia provided Wikileaks with the DNC and Podesta leaks in order to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the US election.

Before proceeding further, it is important to say that these three ODNI officials are undoubtedly acting on instructions from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.  Indeed it is very likely he is one of them.

The key point the ODNI officials are making is that whilst there is some evidence of Russian intelligence having hacked the DNC, that does not prove it was Russian intelligence which passed on the information to Wikileaks in order to swing the election to Donald Trump.

In the words of one of the unnamed ODNI officials

“[The CIA conclusion] was a judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked.  (It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment.”

(bold italics added)

Moreover it turns out that this is the same thinking as that of the FBI.  As one of the ODNI officials told Reuters

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA’s analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason”.

(bold italics added)

I have previously made this very point

“It now turns that the CIA in fact has no evidence against Russia, that the entire case against Russia is inferential, and that some sections of the US intelligence community are now starting to have doubts.”

(bold italics added)

In fact we know it was not Russia which provided the DNC and Podesta leaks to Wikileaks. 

We know this because the two people who are in a position to know who provided the leaks to Wikileaks – Julian Assange and Craig Murray, both of whom have a reputation for truth telling – say otherwise, and say the leaks were provided to Wikileaks by a Washington insider, whom Craig Murray says he has met.

This whole hysteria of Russia being behind the DNC and Podesta leaks is now exposed as the work of a faction within the CIA who are cooking up a case against Russia that goes far beyond what even ODNI and the FBI say is the evidence in order to deny Donald Trump the Presidency and to hand it over to Hillary Clinton.

As it is looking increasingly likely that this coup will fail, it is no wonder these people are starting to fear “reprisals”.  On the strength of what they have done, at the very least they deserve the sack.