"“It isn’t about the election,” a second senior official said, referring to claims of Russian interference." (8th parag. from end)
10/31/16, "Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia," NY Times, Eric Lichtblau and Steven Lee Myers
"A version of this article appears in print on November 1, 2016, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: After Lengthy Inquiries, Officials Doubt Trump Has Direct Link to Russia."...
"For much of the summer, the F.B.I. pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. Agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald J. Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead — which they ultimately came to doubt — about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank.
Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government....
Intelligence officials have said in interviews over the last six weeks that apparent connections between some of Mr. Trump’s aides and Moscow originally compelled them to open a broad investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Republican presidential candidate. Still, they have said that Mr. Trump himself has not become a target. And no evidence has emerged that would link him or anyone else in his business or political circle directly to Russia’s election operations.
At
least one part of the investigation has involved Paul Manafort, Mr.
Trump’s campaign chairman for much of the year. Mr. Manafort, a veteran
Republican political strategist, has had extensive business ties in
Russia and other former Soviet states, especially Ukraine, where he
served as an adviser to that country’s ousted president, Viktor F.
Yanukovych.
But
the focus in that case was on Mr. Manafort’s ties with a kleptocratic
government in Ukraine — and whether he had declared the income in the
United States — and not necessarily on any Russian influence over Mr.
Trump’s campaign, one official said.
In
classified sessions in August and September, intelligence officials
also briefed congressional leaders on the possibility of financial ties
between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump. They focused
particular attention on what cyberexperts said appeared to be a
mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the
Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia’s biggest banks and whose owners have
longstanding ties to Mr. Putin.
F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd
stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank.
Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at
Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 “look-up” messages — a first step for one
system’s computers to talk to another — to a Trump-connected server
beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I. ultimately concluded that there
could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for
the computer contacts....
(parag. 15) Investigators, the officials said, have become
increasingly confident, based on the evidence they have uncovered, that
Russia’s direct goal is not to support the election of Mr. Trump, as
many Democrats have asserted, but rather to disrupt the integrity of the
political system and undermine America’s standing in the world more
broadly...an intensification of spy-versus-spy
operations that never entirely abated after the Cold War but that have
become more aggressive in recent years as relations with Mr. Putin’s
Russia have soured.
A senior intelligence official, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing national security investigation, said the Russians had become adept at exploiting computer vulnerabilities created by the relative openness of and reliance on the internet....
A senior intelligence official, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing national security investigation, said the Russians had become adept at exploiting computer vulnerabilities created by the relative openness of and reliance on the internet....
Investigators,
the officials said, have become increasingly confident, based on the
evidence they have uncovered, that Russia’s direct goal is not to
support the election of Mr. Trump, as many Democrats have asserted, but
rather to disrupt the integrity of the political system and undermine
America’s standing in the world more broadly.
The
hacking, they said, reflected an intensification of spy-versus-spy
operations that never entirely abated after the Cold War but that have
become more aggressive in recent years as relations with Mr. Putin’s
Russia have soured.
A
senior intelligence official, who like the others spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing national security
investigation, said the Russians had become adept at exploiting computer
vulnerabilities created by the relative openness of and reliance on the
internet....
"“It isn’t about the election,” a second senior official said, referring to the aims of Russia’s interference. “It’s about a threat to democracy.”
"“It isn’t about the election,” a second senior official said, referring to the aims of Russia’s interference. “It’s about a threat to democracy.”
The
investigation has treated it as a counterintelligence operation as much
as a criminal one, though agents are also focusing on whether anyone in
the United States was involved. The officials declined to discuss any
individual targets of the investigation, even when assured of anonymity."...
===========
Comment: Hey, better luck next time, fellas.
============
Added: The US government--not Russia--sought to "undermine America’s standing in the world more broadly" when on June 30, 2016, Obama requested foreign monitors for the November 2016 US presidential election:
10/21/16, "International monitors for a US election--just like in Haiti," Miami Herald, Andres Oppenheimer, columnist
"For the first time ever, the Organization of American States will monitor the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, putting the United States in the same league as Haiti and other politically volatile Latin American countries....
The head of the OAS observation mission to the U.S. election, former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, told me in an interview that the outside scrutiny was requested by the U.S. government on June 30.
The OAS has been monitoring elections in Latin America and the Caribbean for the past 50 years, most recently in Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia and Peru. Usually, governments request these missions to generate domestic and foreign confidence in the electoral process and to help prevent post-electoral violence.
In this case, the OAS will deploy election observers in up to 15 U.S. states, including New York, California, Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Florida will not be included because of a state law that prohibits such outside election missions, she said.
Chinchilla told me that the OAS is more than happy to conduct its U.S. observation mission, among other things because it will help debunk a frequent excuse by Latin American authoritarian regimes for not accepting outside electoral monitoring missions.
“Many of them say, ‘If the United States doesn’t allow observers, why should we?’ ” she explained."...
----------------
Added: John Kerry--not Russia--cast doubt on "the integrity of the political system" and undermined "America’s standing in the world more broadly." Per Dec. 2015 published article, John Kerry said he still thinks the 2004 US election was rigged by the Bush campaign and has shared this view with at least one foreign leader. In particular, Kerry says they rigged the vote in Ohio.
===========
Comment: Hey, better luck next time, fellas.
============
Added: The US government--not Russia--sought to "undermine America’s standing in the world more broadly" when on June 30, 2016, Obama requested foreign monitors for the November 2016 US presidential election:
10/21/16, "International monitors for a US election--just like in Haiti," Miami Herald, Andres Oppenheimer, columnist
"For the first time ever, the Organization of American States will monitor the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, putting the United States in the same league as Haiti and other politically volatile Latin American countries....
The head of the OAS observation mission to the U.S. election, former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, told me in an interview that the outside scrutiny was requested by the U.S. government on June 30.
The OAS has been monitoring elections in Latin America and the Caribbean for the past 50 years, most recently in Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia and Peru. Usually, governments request these missions to generate domestic and foreign confidence in the electoral process and to help prevent post-electoral violence.
In this case, the OAS will deploy election observers in up to 15 U.S. states, including New York, California, Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Florida will not be included because of a state law that prohibits such outside election missions, she said.
Chinchilla told me that the OAS is more than happy to conduct its U.S. observation mission, among other things because it will help debunk a frequent excuse by Latin American authoritarian regimes for not accepting outside electoral monitoring missions.
“Many of them say, ‘If the United States doesn’t allow observers, why should we?’ ” she explained."...
Added: John Kerry--not Russia--cast doubt on "the integrity of the political system" and undermined "America’s standing in the world more broadly." Per Dec. 2015 published article, John Kerry said he still thinks the 2004 US election was rigged by the Bush campaign and has shared this view with at least one foreign leader. In particular, Kerry says they rigged the vote in Ohio.
......
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