U.S. imposes sanctions on Russia for election hacking

Obama's surrogates announced sanctions against Russia's intelligence services and are kicking out dozens of intelligence operatives from the United States in response to what they claim are Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Lame duck president Obama sanctioned the GRU and FSB--two Russian intelligence agencies--and other entities and people associated with the GRU. The cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to investigate the alleged hack, concluded the hacking came from the Fancy Bear group, thought to be an arm of the GRU, part of Russia's military intelligence agency.

The U.S. State Department has also declared 35 Russian intel operatives "persona non grata" and are giving them 72 hours to leave. We are also shutting down two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said in response that Moscow will consider retaliatory measures and Vladimir may kick Barack's butt "mano a mano."

Mr. Obama has since gone into hiding somewhere on the island of Kauai.

"We think that such steps by a U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect," Dmitry Peskov told Russian media.

The Treasury Secretary claimed that Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev and Aleksey Alekseyevich Belan were involved in "malicious cyber-enabled activities." 

So called President Obama said in a statement: "These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior."

Apparently, the Obama administration knew about the Russian cyber attacks before the election but thought Clinton had the election in the bag so they kept quiet. If she had won and this had been uncovered, it would have likely been minimized by the Clinton team.

It's a good thing that something is being done about the Russian cyber attacks, but it took them long enough.



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The DNI and CIA don't agree with Russian hack assessment

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the agency that oversees our entire intelligence community, does not fully concur with the CIA finding that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections in an effort to help Donald Trump win.

Several U.S. election-related hacking incidents are being categorized as if they are related, but DNI believes they should be treated as separate events. 

The hacking involves breaches at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and another campaign arm. It also involves an email account of a top campaign official for Clinton, and at state election boards.

Although ODNI doesn't dispute the CIA analysis on the Russian hacking, the office isn't convinced that Moscow sought specifically to help Trump beat Clinton. So, it is intent that's at issue here.

The CIA made the call regarding Russia's intent based solely on the fact that only Democratic information was leaked. The ODNI official said that this is a "thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment."

Perhaps the fact that Donald Trump and other Republicans did not have a private email server hidden in a bathroom closet in Colorado may have made it somewhat more difficult for the Russians to hack the GOP.

Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, was the person whose email was hacked and he is backing the call for electors to get an intelligence briefing on the situation with Russian interference in the election.

The difference of opinion between the CIA and ODNI was first revealed in a letter on Monday from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to Director of Intelligence and Ed Rollins lookalike, James Clapper. It noted that the CIA findings conflicted with Clapper's public testimony in mid-November.

"On November 17, 2016, you told the Committee during an open hearing that the IC [Intelligence Community] lacked strong evidence connecting Russian government cyberattacks and WikiLeaks disclosures," Nunes wrote.

Clapper, in response to a question from ranking Democrat Adam Schiff, said "As far as the WikiLeaks connection, the evidence there is not as strong and we don't have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided. We don't have as good insight into that."

Nunes is requesting a briefing from the CIA and FBI on the current assessment of alleged involvement by Russia as it relates to our election--he wants it by Dec. 16 as the electors are to cast their votes for the presidential selection on Dec. 19.

The Post reported that the FBI gave a different account on Russian interference and that the CIA assessment was based, in part, on intelligence indicating Moscow's hacking disproportionately affected Democratic targets.


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China hacked us, Hillary screwed us

From what we know, Chinese cyber hacker attackers have been reading the email of U.S. government officials from 2010 to 2014 reports NBC. The operation is known as "Dancing Panda."

As Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013,, Hillary Clinton's use of a private, unprotected server, must have looked like the neon lights of Times Square on New Years Eve to the hackers.

But what difference, at this time, does it make? Like Benghazi, it's too late to do anything about the information getting out to the Chinese, just like it was too late for Ambassador Stevens et al.

At least the FBI is now conducting a criminal investigation as to whether Hillary sent or received classified information on her server. Anyone with a brain knows that she did, and anyone who is not a liberal, knows that if they're not found, she destroyed the evidence.

NBC writes:

China's cyber spies have accessed the private emails of "many" top Obama administration officials, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and a top secret document obtained by NBC News, and have been doing so since at least April 2010.

The email grab -- first codenamed "Dancing Panda" by U.S. officials, and then "Legion Amethyst" -- was detected in April 2010, according to a top secret NSA briefing from 2014. The intrusion into personal emails was still active at the time of the briefing and, according to the senior official, is still going on. 

So what's going to happen to Hillary Clinton if it's found that she did indeed use her server to send and receive confidential material?

Probably nothing.

And that's the problem.

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