From Russia with love: Today's news for December 13th

In the continuing saga of "Let's ignore what the American people wanted and try to hijack Trump's presidency before it begins", it seems nobody in the government can agree on what the Russians were trying to do when they hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's emails.

Business Insider:

'We're drawing very different conclusions': 

The FBI and the CIA can't agree on the motives of Russian hacks

The CIA and the FBI seemingly can't agree over why Russian hackers targeted the inboxes of prominent Democrats and Democratic organizations in 2016.

In a secret assessment — the content of which has been leaked to the press via high-level officials briefed on the intelligence — the CIA said the Russians were working toward a specific goal: "to help get Trump elected."

If it was a "secret assessment", why isn't anyone investigating how it got leaked to the press? Does anti-Trump classified information not get the same consideration as other classified information?

Anyway...

The assessment said Russia was not just trying to undermine confidence in the US election process when it hacked into the emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and the Democratic National Committee.

"It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected," a senior US official briefed on the CIA report told The Washington Post. "That's the consensus view." 

And Iraq has weapons of mass destruction...

The FBI, however — while agreeing that the hacking campaign originated in Russia — has been reluctant to align itself with the CIA and assign a motive to the cyberattacks. A senior FBI counterintelligence told the House Intelligence Committee last week that the bureau was still not sure whether Russia's "specific goal" was to get Trump elected.

"There's no question that [the Russians'] efforts went one way, but it's not clear that they have a specific goal or mix of related goals," a US official present at the hearing said. 

...The FBI has gone after Russian hackers before, The New York Times has reported. But because it is a law-enforcement agency, it is required to produce more concrete evidence of criminal wrongdoing than the CIA, which is tasked with producing intelligence analyses. 

There is uncertainty as to the Russians' motives? How is that possible?

What if the Russians committing the act were doing it for money? Wikileaks stood to gain a fortune for this treasure trove of emails. They would happily plunk down a good chunk of change for those emails, and there is no doubt any Russian hacker might have known it. Certainly the Russian government wouldn't interfere with Russia-based hackers, as the government would enjoy plausible deniability while still getting what they want in the U.S. presidential election.

Regardless, the FBI isn't the only federal agency to question why the Russians did it:

Reuters:

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking - sources

The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.

While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

So why the disagreement?

On the surface, it is easy to speculate the Russians were trying to help Trump. Putin had no love for Hillary, and did seem to at least get along with Trump. Mind you, that doesn't mean there was some secret conspiracy to elect Trump. If there was, it was the worst kept secret ever, as there were at least hundreds of news reports prior to the election of connections between Trump and Russia.

But this is only speculation, and even if you can prove intent, then what? Even IF you prove Trump was somehow secretly colluding with the Russians (on top of publicly doing it?), what then? The election results are what they are. You can impeach and remove Trump from office, but that would just leave us with President Pence (certainly preferable).

More likely the only thing proven will be the Russians were behind it and the political parties (along with their campaigns) need better cyber-security.

In other news from cold places...

Huffington Post:

North Dakota Oil Pipeline Spills An Estimated 176,000 Gallons

About 150 miles from where thousands have protested for months that the Dakota Access pipeline could threaten a Sioux tribe’s water supply, a pipeline in the western part of North Dakota has spilled more than 130,000 gallons of oil into a creek, state officials said.

In all, the Belle Fourche pipeline lost 4,200 barrels of crude oil, or more than 176,000 gallons, before operators shut it down, according to state Department of Health spokeswoman Jennifer Skjod. Most of the oil flowed into the Ash Coulee Creek near Belfield, Skjod said.

It’s unclear what caused the break, according to Wendy Owen, a spokeswoman for Wyoming-based True Companies, which owns the pipeline. A landowner discovered the leak Dec. 5. The company uses monitoring technology designed to detect leaks, but it possibly failed because of “the intermittent nature of the flow” of oil through the pipeline, Owen said.

Admittedly, this was a long way from the worst oil spill in history: That was the Lakeview Gusher, which spilled 9 million barrels from 1910-1911.

Still, it is curious why this hasn't been reported by many outlets in the mainstream media, even though they did cover the Sioux protest. Why cover the protest, but ignore a good reason for the protest?