Less and less convinced

From James Taranto today:
Two additional points. First, the Post describes the CIA’s report as “secret.” So how is it that everyone knows about it? The answer, obviously, is that officials who were privy to the secrets improperly provided them to the press. (Here we should note that we do not fault the Post or the Times for having published the information they received, and that we would have done the same.)
Second, according to the Times report, even if the Russians were trying to help Trump, they didn’t expect to be successful:
The Russians were as surprised as everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory, intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clinton won, they believe, emails stolen from the Democratic committee and from senior members of her campaign could have been used to undercut her legitimacy.
So American officials made secret information public with the effect—and, one may surmise, the intent—of raising questions about the legitimacy of President-elect Trump. That’s exactly what they accuse the Russians of having planned to do to Mrs. Clinton.

4 comments:

Grim said...

Not quite: the DNC information was private, but it wasn't classified.

E Hines said...

So American officials made secret information public....

Again, not quite. American Democratic officials made secret information public.

A Democratic Party Secretary of State conducted State Department official business on a private, unsecured email server, exposing secret (and much higher) information to our enemies, and to the public. A Democratic Party headquarters committee made private information public through its lack of IT security. A Democratic Party campaign made private information public through its lack of IT security.

It's eminently clear that Democrats have only contempt for secrets and for IT security.

Meanwhile, the Russians used the same techniques to attack the RNC's IT that it used to penetrate the DNC's IT and failed miserably. The Republicans' contempt for lacking IT security blocked virtually all of the Russians' attacks. The Russians did get a little bit of stuff: a few innocuous emails from State and lower party functions asking procedural and technique questions.

There's a pattern here.

Eric Hines

Texan99 said...

The information Taranto refers to as secret is the internal CIA analysis of the methods and motives of the Russian hack, which was leaked to the press by intelligence officials. Intelligence officials have since declined to discuss it on the record, even when called before a Congressional committee.

Cass said...

Bingo. But we're all supposed to just accept this.

I don't.