Historical & Structural Reasons for Skepticism of CIA Claims: Remaining Agnostic on Claims of Russian Hackers

Just in time for the American weekend news cycle, last Friday evening we learned from the Washington Post that Central Intelligence Agency issued a secret report concluding that Russian hackers were responsible for hacking Democratic computers and leaking stolen documents as an effort to determine the outcome of the American presidential election.  We learn that a preliminary CIA report before the election indicated concerns of Russian involvement in the hacking of DNC email accounts, a hack which produced emails embarrassing candidate Hillary Clinton and members of her staff.

The Washington Post reported that the CIA “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.”  Soon after the Post story was published, the New York Times produced its own unnamed CIA source claiming that Russian hackers had also pwned the Trump campaign’s email servers, but that the Russians chose to not leak these files because Russians backed Trump in the election.

The resulting flurry of reactions by talking heads on weekend news shows has led many Clinton supporters on social media to suggest that this anonymous CIA leak could form the basis of undermining the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency. There has been an eruption of hopes that the CIA had found the desired talisman to wake us all from the nightmare of the coming Trump years.  Suddenly, many on the American left now embrace notions of a CIA led coup against a rouge President-elect; with little discussion of the CIA’s long history of interfering in elections, covertly undermining candidates not of their liking.  Now we have US liberals cheering for a possible CIA coup here at home.

Truth is, we know nothing about the veracity of this leaked information from the CIA. As to the truth of these reports, I remain agnostic in these matters and highly recommend others do too.  While we know nothing about the truth of these reports, we know a lot about the messenger delivering this news, and what we know should give us pause before accepting news of a Russian electoral coup here at home.

As a scholar with two decades of academic research studying the CIA, I think many on the American left are letting their dire fear of the damage Trump will surely bring to not fully consider how the CIA is playing these events.  Many on the American left misunderstand what the CIA is and isn’t.  It isn’t some sort of right wing agency, it is an agency filled with bright people with beliefs across the mainstream political spectrum—many of the CIA’s anti-democratic coups have occurred under Democratic presidents, carried out by liberal CIA operatives; but most significantly the CIA is part of the deep state. 

Read more http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/12/historical-structural-reasons-for-skepticism-of-cia-claims-remaining-agnostic-on-claims-of-russian-hackers/

This article was republished under the legal doctrine of fair use.