Part 1
The Senate Intelligence Hearing with Victoria Nuland and Michael Daniel was very much worth watching, and not too long.
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Nuland's opening statement:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-vnuland-062018.pdf
she is the — the Center for a New American Security, which I lead, plans to join the community of think tanks working on these issues
—- I urged stronger counter-measures earlier in 2016 to raise the costs on Russia for its action and thereby try to deter greater harm. For a variety of reasons, President Obama chose to wait until after the 2016 presidential election to launch a full interagency investigation into Russian actions and to respond.
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Senate Intelligence committee on russian interference in 2016 elections
starring Victoria Nuland and Michael Daniel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Nef2gDeoA
Chairman Burr: What could we have done that would have changed where we are here today?
31:40 – Nuland – "Thanks, Chairman. In this open session, let me say, I assume you're talking about what was done with regard to the adversary, with regard to Russia, rather than the things that Mr. Daniel has talked about with States, etcetera. Uh, so, um, it's accurate to say that, uh, in September the President made a stern and personal warning to President P..Putin, that there were follow-up conversations in other government channels with appropriate counterparts including, uh, uh, use of some pre-existing channels that we had with the Russians. Um, but we did not take deterent measures in this electoral period. Um, there was a lot of work going on (she smiles directly at Chairman) I would say from June onward, as to what kinds of deterent measures we could take, either in the electoral period or afterwards. A lot of work informed what was done later in December. Um, but for a variety of reasons, uh, some of them you highlighted yourself, uh, some of them have come out and Mr. Daniels mentioned, there are others that are more classified, uh, the President chose to launch the full investigation and response after the election. I think, uh, you know, it's fair to say, that all of us in the process assumed that what was done in December-January of 2016-2017 would be a starting point for what the incoming administration would then build on. Uh, so, I think there's still plenty of work to be done."
36:00 – Chairman Burr – At what point did you become aware of Mr. Steele's efforts?
Nuland – Mr. Steele's efforts with regard to the…?
Burr – "the dossier"
Nuland – "to the dossier. Um, I was, uh, first shown excerpts from the dossier, I believe in mid July of 2016. Uh, it wasn't the complete thing, which I didn't see until it was published in the U.S. press."
Burr – "Sure. I know you've talked extensively with our staff relative to Mr. Steele. Uh, based upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October of 2016. Did you have any role in the briefing."
Nuland – "I did not. I actively chose not to be part of that briefing."
Burr – "But, you were aware of the briefing?"
Nuland – "I was not aware of it until afterwards."
38:06 – Nuland – "I think it's certainly the case that it was very important to tell the Russians at every level including the top level that we were watching what they were doing. Whether they slowed the Russians role, whether they did less particularly after the President spoke directly to Putin in early September, I don't know. There was-uh is, if you look at the record of their activity they were generally a little less active in September than they later were in October, and that they particularly were at the end of October where they were quite active, uh, when they thought that the election might turn out differently than what they previously thought."
38:50 – Daniel – "And I would generally agree with, uh, Ambassador Nuland's, uh, uh, remarks on that, I would say that I would draw a distinction between we saw a diminuition of their cyber activity aimed at the electoral infrastucture? and actual, and now looking back we see very much an increase in what they were doing on social media and the influence operation.
So, I think my conclusion would be that they shifted their focus away from pure cyber operations and more into the information operations area as a result of what we were communicating."