President Obama has ordered a full review into whether or not Russian hackers played a part in the 2016 presidential election.
Intelligence agencies are ordered to conduct a full investigation into the possibility of foreign hacking altering the outcome and process of the 2016 election, specifically in favor of Donald Trump. The agencies are expected to complete their investigation by President Obama’s last day in office, January 20.
According to Lisa Monaco, the White House’s homeland security and counterterrorism advisor, “We maybe crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what this means, what has happened and to impart those lessons learned.”
Politico reports that any finding from the investigation will be reported to “a range of stakeholders,” and that it is up to the intelligence community what information will be released to the public.
“That’s going to be first and foremost a determination that’s made by the intelligence community. We want to do so very attentive to not disclosing sources and methods that may impede our ability to identify and attribute malicious actors in the future.” Monaco said.
Russia has previously been accused of hacking Democratic Party officials, specifically DNC emails to expose Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation in order to put Clinton in a negative light and bolster Trump’s chances of winning.
Computer scientists believe they have also found evidence of manipulation or hacking in three states, but no solid evidence has been released.
Last week, it was announced that the CIA had concluded a secret assessment of Russian involvement in the election and that “Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.” However, any evidence that the CIA has found is shrouded in secrecy. According to the Chicago Tribune:
“With so much of the evidence about Russia’s alleged role in the election shrouded in secrecy because of strict classification rules, Democrats and Republicans in Washington who have access to the underlying intelligence say they have struggled to make their respective cases, leaving an already deeply divided public convinced that both sides are shading their conclusions to help the candidate they backed on Election Day.”
So far no evidence has been released to the public regarding the Russian hacking, leaving the Democratic party extremely frustrated.
With all the red tape, as well as the dismissal of the entire situation by Donald Trump, the public may never get clear answers.
COMMENTS