[BHO] waited until to do something about the 'Russians' as he need Flynn "out of the country"
Stephen McIntyre @ClimateAudit
THREAD:
on Dec 29, 2016, day of Flynn-Kislyak calls, there was third leg to Obama statement on sanctions against Russian intel agencies and expulsion of diplomats: the release of “declassified technical information” on Russian cyber activity.
2/ The Dec 29 technical information, which was jointly published by DHS and FBI, https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf, had been expected to settle any and all skepticism by Trump and others of the intel community’s (then merely asserted) attribution of DNC hack to Russian state actors.
3/ I remember reading report in real time and being appalled its inadequacy. Indeed, its apparent incompetence led me to start looking critically and analytically at other documents. In retrospect, it's even worse than I originally thought.
4/ It contained NO evidence supporting Russian attribution of DNC hack. Attached to it was a 921-row spreadsheet of supposedly relevant malware and infrastructure - NONE of which was connected to DNC hack.
5/ Nearly all technical information (YARA rule, hashes) pertained to a single form of php malware, which was almost immedately shown https://wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/russia-malware-ip-hack/ to be publicly available on internet – ironically from Ukraine, not Russia.
6/ At best, malware in the DHX-FBI report was irrelevant to DNC hack; at worst, it contradicted attribution to Russia. If intel community/Obama admin used report in attribution, it's worrying. If they were merely trying to gull public and incoming admin with nonsense, no better
7/ now to the narrative. As of Nov 28, 2016, Trump remained skeptical of
https://time.com/4591183/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump-interview/ intel community's attribution of DNC hack to Russia. He admitted possibility, but wasn't convinced based on then available information. This really annoyed media.
8/ on Dec 27, 2016, on eve of Obama policy, Adam Schiff gave an interesting interview, covering topics which were later, more or less, the terms of reference for Mueller http://archive.is/PJhkH
9/ leading into Dec 29 statement, The Hill http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/312049-obama-under-pressure-to-prove-russian-interference-in-election reported that Obama admin was “under pressure to prove Russian interference” as up till then they had “provided little documentation” to back its assessment
10/ The Hill article noted that Obama admin was reported to be preparing “retaliatory measures, including sanctions” and naively asserted that “to levy sanctions, WH will have to offer some proof”, with one official expecting link to be “very, very tight”. Uh, huh.
11/ At the time, the Trump transition team demanded that Brennan and others show their evidence, rather than just leak. Kellyanne Conway: " let's see it [the evidence]."
Links
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1264930386242502656
https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf
https://t.co/4P9dqf2H2u?amp=1
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/russia-malware-ip-hack/
https://time.com/4591183/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump-interview/
https://archive.is/PJhkH
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/312049-obama-under-pressure-to-prove-russian-interference-in-election