Trump’s bogus claim that intelligence report says Russia didn’t impact the 2016 election outcome
Trump’s bogus claim that intelligence report says Russia didn’t impact the 2016 election outcome
By Aaron Blake January The Washington Post
The big, overarching reason that President-elect Donald Trump doesn't want to accept the conclusions of the intelligence community about Russia's alleged hacking is pretty simple: It would call into question whether he would have won the 2016 election without it. Trump is a winner, and it would hurt his brand.
And he's making that very clear right now — in a deceptive way.
In a statement Friday afternoon and a tweet Saturday morning, Trump claimed that (a) Russia had no actual influence on the election results and that (b) the intelligence report says so. The first claim is unproveable; the second is just bogus.
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in his Friday statement after receiving an intelligence briefing.
And here's the tweet:
Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!
Trump is using a clever bit of misdirection to argue that the report says something it doesn't. The report does say voting machines weren't hacked; it does not say there's “no evidence that hacking affected the election results.” In fact, on the latter count, it says pretty clearly that it isn't making any such determination.
READ MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fi...
By Aaron Blake January The Washington Post
The big, overarching reason that President-elect Donald Trump doesn't want to accept the conclusions of the intelligence community about Russia's alleged hacking is pretty simple: It would call into question whether he would have won the 2016 election without it. Trump is a winner, and it would hurt his brand.
And he's making that very clear right now — in a deceptive way.
In a statement Friday afternoon and a tweet Saturday morning, Trump claimed that (a) Russia had no actual influence on the election results and that (b) the intelligence report says so. The first claim is unproveable; the second is just bogus.
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in his Friday statement after receiving an intelligence briefing.
And here's the tweet:
Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!
Trump is using a clever bit of misdirection to argue that the report says something it doesn't. The report does say voting machines weren't hacked; it does not say there's “no evidence that hacking affected the election results.” In fact, on the latter count, it says pretty clearly that it isn't making any such determination.
READ MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fi...
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”