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Top US intelligence official: Russia meddled in 2016 election through hacking, propaganda

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Washington: The top intelligence official in the US said Thursday that Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign consisted of hacking, as well as the spreading of traditional propaganda and "fake news."

"Whatever crack, fissure, they could find in our tapestry ... they would exploit it," said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on foreign cyber threats, and especially Russian hacking and interference in the campaign.

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Russia undoubtedly meddled in election

National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Russia poses a major and growing threat to US government, military, diplomatic and commercial operations. Senators suggested the President-elect should take notice.

President-elect Donald Trump has loudly and repeatedly voiced scepticism that the Kremlin was orchestrating the effort, directly clashing with the view of the US intelligence community and the committee's chairman, Senator John McCain.

Every American "should be alarmed by Russia's attacks on our nation," McCain said at the opening of the packed hearing.

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"There is no national security interest more vital to the United States of America than the ability to hold free and fair elections without foreign interference," he said.

Senator Lindsey Graham asked Clapper if he was ready to be challenged by Trump, and Clapper said he is. Graham also advised Trump, "Mr President-elect, when you listen to these people, you can be sceptical, but understand they're the best among us and they're trying to protect us."

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Graham criticised President Barack Obama's response, saying he had thrown "a pebble" at the Russians, adding, "I'm ready to throw a rock."

"To those of you who want to throw rocks, you're going to get a chance here soon, and if we don't throw rocks, we're going to make a huge mistake," Graham said. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is time now not to throw pebbles, but to throw rocks."

Clapper also called for a more aggressive counter-propaganda effort. "We could do with having a USIA on steroids," he said, referring to the US Information Agency.

McCain, who has been critical of the Obama administration's responses to cyber-provocations by foreign nations such as China and Russia, pressed Clapper on whether the campaign meddling was an attack on the United States and an "act of war."

"We have no way of gauging the impact, certainly the intelligence community can't gauge the impact, it had on choices the electorate made," Clapper replied.

Determining whether an action is an act of war is a "very heavy policy call that I don't believe the intelligence community should make, but it certainly would carry, in my view, great gravity," he said.

Also testifying were Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Marcel Lettre and Michael Rogers, commander of the US Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.

The three officials released a joint statement ahead of their testimony outlining cyber threats against the country and the nation's ongoing strategy to defend itself. The statement describes Russia as "a full-scope cyber actor that poses a major threat" to US infrastructure and networks.

"In recent years, we have observed the Kremlin assume a more aggressive cyber posture," the statement said.

Regarding the targeting of the Democratic Party in 2016, the statement repeated Obama's assertion that the hacking operation could only have been authorised by "Russia's senior-most officials."

A classified report on Russian intelligence interference in the campaign has been prepared for Obama, who was to receive it Thursday.

Clapper said that intelligence officials "plan to brief the Congress and release an unclassified version of this report to the public early next week."

Democrats share the intelligence community's view that Russia was behind the meddling.

"There is still much we do not know, but Russia's involvement in these intrusions does not appear to be in any doubt," said Senator Jack Reed, R.I., the committee's ranking Democrat. "In this case, detection and attribution were not so difficult, the implication being that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin may have wanted us to know what he had done, seeking only a level of plausible deniability to support an official rejection of culpability."

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, took a swipe at Trump for disparaging the intelligence community. The president-elect, for instance, has indicated that he believes WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange's comments that Russia is not behind the Democratic Party hacks. "Who benefits from a president-elect trashing the intelligence community? ... Who actually is the benefactor?" she said.

Clapper replied that "there is an important distinction here between healthy scepticism, which policymakers, to include policymaker Number 1, should always have for intelligence, but I think there is a difference between scepticism and disparagement.''

Washington Post

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