One week after a joint FBI/DHS report was released, supposedly meant to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia intervened in the US presidential election, and thus served as a diplomatic basis for Obama's expulsion of 35 diplomats, yet which merely confirmed that a Ukrainian piece of malware which could be purchased by anyone, was responsible for spoofing various email accounts including that of the DNC and John Podesta, moments ago US intelligence agencies released a more "authoritative", 25-page report, titled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", and which not surprisingly only serves to validate the media narrative, by concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'ordered' an effort to influence U.S. presidential election.
What proof is there? Sadly, again, none. However, as the intelligence agencies state, "We have high confidence in these judgments"... just like they had high confidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment.
At this point a quick detour, because the intel agencies responsible for drafting the report then explain how "confident" they are: "CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence."
What do these distinctions mean?
High confidence generally indicates judgments based on high-quality information, and/or the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. However, high confidence judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.
Moderate confidence generally means credibly sourced and plausible information, but not of sufficient quality or corroboration to warrant a higher level of confidence.
In other words, while not carrying the infamous DHS disclaimer according to which last week's entire joint FBI/DHS report is likely garbage, the US intel agencies admit they may well be "wrong."
Or, as some have stated, just a regurgitation of already existing opinions and absolutely zero facts.
Russian Propaganda Efforts. Russia’s state-run propaganda machine—comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls—contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences. State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about President-elect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.
On 6 August, RT published an English-language video called “Julian Assange Special: Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That’ll Put Clinton in Prison?” and an exclusive interview with Assange entitled “Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money.” RT’s most popular video on Secretary Clinton, “How 100% of the Clintons’ ‘Charity’ Went to…Themselves,” had more than 9 million views on social media platforms. RT’s most popular English language video about the President-elect, called “Trump Will Not Be Permitted To Win,” featured Assange and had 2.2 million views.
One almost wonders: is RT's audience really that much greater than the that of NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, MSNBC, CNN etc to overpower all of US media?
There is much more in the full report below, although unfortunately, no actual proof (link).