Via ConsortiumNews.com,
In a memo to President Trump, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, cite new forensic studies to challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 “assessment” that Russia “hacked” Democratic emails last year.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Authored by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
In Official Washington, words rarely mean what they say. For instance, if a U.S. government official voices “high confidence” in a supposed “intelligence assessment,” that usually means “we don’t have any real evidence, but we figure that if we say ‘high confidence’ enough that no one will dare challenge us.”
When the WaPo posted last Friday's story about a "secret" CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, the readers of the Bezos-owned publication took it as gospel, despite, as we promptly noted, there being no evidence provided by the CIA, and as we learned today, the FBI openly resisting the CIA's assessment. It now appears that once again the WaPo may have been engaging in "partial fake news", as it did with its Nov. 24 story about "Russian propaganda fake media."
Following the resignation of James Clapper on Thursday, Donald Trump‘s national security team propose eliminating the Director of National Intelligence office (ODNI) altogether and undoing recent CIA reforms. Disassembling the office would go against one of the 9/11 Commission’s key recommendations. On Friday Trump announced that Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo and Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions were his picks to serve in the posts as CIA director and US Attorney General, respectively. Retired Army Lieutenant Gen. Michael Flynn would be appointed National Security Advisor.
Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,
In the spirit of the transparency — of which the Obama administration claims to be a champion — there will be no details regarding the allocation of non-military intelligence spending in the president’s final budget request to Congress.