The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases a report detailing how Russia influenced the 2016 election, with intelligence from the CIA, FBI, and the NSA.
The report is a “declassified version of a highly classified assessment.”
Some highlights from the report:
- Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the election with the goals of undermining faith in our democratic system and damaging the electability of Hillary Clinton.
- Russia’s campaign blended cyber operations with influence strategies involving state news media, intelligence agents, Russian officials, and paid social media users to act as trolls.
- Cyber operations were targeted at both political parties.
- Russia’s military intelligence (GRU) used online persona Gucifer 2.0 and website DCLeaks.com to distribute illegally obtained U.S. data to media outlets and the public.
- Russia obtained access to some elements of state and local electoral boards.
- Putin personally blamed the United States for international events unrelated to the election to damage our image internationally.
- Leading up to the election, Kremlin affiliates assuming that Clinton would win swarmed social media with posts accusing the election of being rigged and the voting process of being manipulated. All efforts to publicly discredit our election system were cut off almost immediately after Trump won.
- The GRU infiltrated lobbying groups, political think tanks, and primary campaigns.
- The GRU obtained access to DNC computers in July 2015 and continued to have access until at least June 2016.
- Russia pushed anti-American and pro-Trump propaganda internationally using their state-run media organization, RT (formerly Russia Today).
Skip to page 14 at the link below to read more of the damning document.
Source
Photo: Public Domain
