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I think the blogger is projecting and jumping to confusions. Obama didn’t say what he thinks he said:
Here’s the full transcript of his press conference:
Obama’s Last News Conference: Full Transcript and Video JAN. 18, 2017
(From the NYT)
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______And here’s the blogger’s main assertion:
Three U.S. Intelligence Agencies (CIA, NSA and FBI) claim that IT-Systems of the Democratic National Committee were “hacked” in an operation related to the Russian government. They assert that emails copied during the “hack” were transferred by Russian government related hackers to Wikileaks which then published them.
President Obama disagrees. He says those emails were “leaked”.
Wikileaks had insisted that the emails it published came from an insider source not from any government. The DNC emails proved that the supposedly neutral Democratic Party committee had manipulated the primary presidential elections in favor of the later candidate Hillary Clinton. This made it impossible for the alternative candidate Bernie Sanders to win the nomination. Hillory Clinton, who had extremely high unfavorable ratings, lost the final elections.
The President of the United States disagrees with those Intelligence Services. He says that the DNC emails were “leaked”, i.e. copied by an insider, and then transferred to Wikileaks. (At the time around the leaking the DNC IT-administrator Seth Rich was found murdered for no apparent reason in the streets of Washington DC. The murder case was never solved.)
Here is President Obama in his final press conference yesterday:
First of all, I haven’t commented on WikiLeaks, generally. The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether Wikileaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC emails that were leaked.
The DNC emails “that were leaked” – not “hacked” or “stolen” but “leaked”.
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Obama is talking about the leaks AFTER the hack. The disagreement here isn’t between those who believe it was leaked by the DNC, and those who believe it was hacked, then given to Wikileaks, who THEN leaked it. The latter is accepted by Obama and the intelligence community. They don’t question that this is what happened. Obama is just saying it’s not absolutely confirmed yet who did the hacking, or how the info got from the hackers to Wikileaks.
And yes, when a former British diplomat goes PUBLIC that he received the data and personally handed the information to the folks at Wikileaks… that’s the kind of proof one needs. Everything he said fits the facts perfectly.
So… it’s clear that either Seth Rich did it or had to be party to it due to the level of access required to access all of those emails… And not long after the emails come out?
I don;t buy this narrative. A brit diplomat says he received data from an american. And yet he does not himself say that the DNC guy who delivered this info to HIM (cause that’s what a staffer type would do, seek out a british diplomat, right?) was in fact murdered.
Meanwhile Trump himself says that the evidence indicates there was Russian involvement in the election. Including hacking. And if saying that’s a conspiracy then all 17 USA intel agencies are in on it…because? (?)
Yep.
The general agreement between those agencies is, to me, a big tell. Historically, they can’t stand each other. The infighting between the various agencies has been ongoing for decades, and it got worse after 9/11. In the rare times they come together for at least a rough consensus, I think it’s a pretty safe bet there’s fire behind the smoke. And that has nothing to do with an acceptance of their overall mission, or withholding condemnation for past wrongs, etc. etc. One can remain opposed to all of that and still see they can get data collection right.
I also don’t buy the narrative that they’re all in cahoots with the Clintons. The evidence just doesn’t support this. They’re not liked enough for that, except by their own team and supporters. In general, the military, police and intel communities have always viewed Dems with great suspicion, if not outright contempt . . . all too often seeing them as “far left” or “radical,” even though the reality is quite different. They don’t see them as we leftists do. They don’t see the Clintons, the Obamas, the Dems as centrists or center-right on most issues.
Beyond all of that, sometimes a soup can is just a soup can.
Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans. 1962. MOMA.Add to all of that territorial disputes, and the outright Anschluss of Crimea. Putin had a huge motive to get Trump elected when it comes to those. Trump has given every indication that he doesn’t care about Russia attempts to expand its empire — and, yes, America has expanded its empire for two centuries. But two wrongs don’t make a right, etc. Trump also showed opposition to NATO during the campaign. It’s as if Putin were speaking through him at times.
From my perspective, the only way to get from A to B along the path you’ve chosen is to assume Clinton is Caligula, without one whit of intelligence or common sense. If people want to think of her as evil, that’s up them. But it stretches all the bounds of credulity to believe she would risk life in prison to do what you and others suggest, when there were so many much safer options.
Yes Putin had motives. Of course.
However, it would be naive to insist that Clinton did not.
Moreover, I find it curious that we acknowledge political assassinations in foreign countries by foreign governments AND we acknowledge that WE engage in political assassinations abroad via various direct and indirect means (drones, CIA and CIA contracted, etc)
What we can’t acknowledge is any domestic political assassination.
I mean which one can we acknowledge? Name one.
Point is that there is tremendous antipathy for people on every part of the political spectrum to allow for even the thought to pierce the critical thinking veil. However, simple deductive reasoning leads us to the logical and inevitable conclusion that it MUST be happening here.
And if so, then…when? Which murders are politically motivated? And why must every murder of anyone in government absolutely be NOT politically motivated no matter how many parties have motive, resources and opportunity?
Please understand. I’m NOT trying to say it’s NOT possible that Putin was responsible.
My best read is that the British diplomat wasn’t lying. That doesn’t fit.
Here’s where the Russian narrative falls apart.
WELL BEFORE the Russians supposedly got active, we know from the Wikileak’d emails that Clinton met with the MSM chiefs, top reporters and heads of networks to collude to elevate coverage of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in an effort to “pick her opponent”. They subsequently gave him more than $2B worth of free coverage.
Thus, the Russian narrative timeline doesn’t match. Well before any supposed Russian incursion, even before Clinton really was set up, they were trying to game this election and essentially fix it. That would be Clinton, the DNC and the MSM.
Now, is this a case of Murder on the Orient Express? Do we have multiple culprits? Maybe. Maybe even likely.
However, the Russians had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with elevating Trump, nothing whatsoever to do with saturating him over the airwaves for MONTHS, choking every other candidate of either party of any oxygen…
As for Clinton being Caligula, sorry, but that’s intellectually lazy. She’s on tape saying that she’s in favor of fixing elections, specifically I believe the 2006 Palestinian election. So much for “exporting Democracy”. So, I have ZERO faith in her have ANY integrity. The proof would continue to mount that she and her staff and the DNC sought to rig the primary process which DID risk violating Federal Election laws…except she knows that unless the MSM broadcasts it, no one seems to give a shit.
If it ain’t on TV, no one cares, apparently…
So, I dunno that she felt she was risking anything.
I think the truth very well may be a confluence of Clintonian corruption and Russian influence.
But when it comes to Trump, I’m always gonna put it on Clinton. I mean, the Russians couldn’t hack emails that show her and her staff trying to steal an election if they hadn’t tried to steal it… and even before the Russians got involved. SHE or one of her counselors decided that it was smart to elevate Trump cuz he was easy pickings.
Thanks Hillary. If she had just believed in democracy, not felt entitled and ran a straight campaign based on ideas…win, lose or draw…either she or Bernie would easily have won.
Then again, if the MSM had any integrity, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be coopted in the first place…so there’s that…
Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.
First of all, I didn’t say the Clintons DID murder Rich. I said quite clearly that I don’t know. Your syllogism doesn’t match anything I said.
And the rush to dismiss conspiracy theories to avoid appearing like a loony sharing a bed with unhinged right-wingers is a bad position.
There are conspiracies. These things DO happen. It is naive to dismiss them all out of hand. Sure, conspiracy theories are dangerous vortexes that people get sucked into, and often get addicted to, but responding to that by dismissing all of them is an erroneous position masquerading as common sense. Be skeptical, sure.
Did it happen in this case? Dunno. Neither do you. And “C’mon, man, they wouldn’t do THAT” isn’t a good argument. It’s an open question, though not one I’m going to waste much time worrying about since the answer to that doesn’t really change anything anyway. Murdering somebody in a political coverup is a drop in the Potomac compared to wiping out Libya and Syria and Iraq etc. It’s a drop in the ocean of corporate/government malfeasance. So I don’t really care. But I certainly do not put it past them. These are people who have made decisions that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people…in the millions, probably. And destroyed millions more. But you think they wouldn’t kill a single American in cold blood. Really?
Zooey,
I think we’re talking past each other here. We’re kind of in that “I didn’t say that” mode. Both of us. Take the bolded areas, for instance. I’m not dismissing all conspiracy theories, much less “out of hand.” I’m just dealing with the one raised by Mac.
And it’s not a matter of saying they wouldn’t kill a single American in cold blood. It’s a matter of — to use Mob vernacular — “What’s my percentage?”
How on earth would the murder help the Clintons? How would they benefit from it? See, what Mac did was paint a hypothetical context, which no one has shown existed at all, from which to THEN derive the potential for murder. All of his hypotheticals would have to line up just right in order for it to make any sense at all to even begin to suspect the Clintons. And the biggest one of all? That Rich leaked the info to Wikileaks AND that he was the ONLY person who could bring down the Clinton machine. That defies belief. If there really were fire behind the smoke, a low-level staffer is the only person who can bring everything crashing down? Really? And, there is zero proof that Rich did leak the info.
It’s not a dismissal of all conspiracies. It’s that this particular one is the thinnest of the thin, and it really doesn’t sync up from the point of view of “What’s my percentage?” at all.
Well, I am not well-informed on the Hacking vs. Leaking debate.
But, either way, it’s not hard to imagine that – given that Hillary and DNC emails were her central “problem” in the election – the IT guy might be able and willing to say things that would be harmful to Clinton’s aspirations.
Did you see how many millions of dollars dried up to the Clinton foundation after she lost?
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