The Russian lie exposed: Today's news for January 3rd

RealClearPolitics:

Assange To Hannity: Source For WikiLeaks Was Not Russian Government

In an exclusive interview with FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange said Russia was not the source for the DNC and John Podesta hacks. 

HANNITY: Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta's emails, can you tell the American people 1,000 percent that you did not get it from Russia or anybody associated with Russia?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes. We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.

Because of Assange's history as a "teller of truth to power", and attacking both parties equally when they were in power, it makes it difficult to call this a lie from Assange. If he is lying, and the U.S. government can connect the Russian hacks to Wikileaks, then his credibility will be shot.

However, Assange gets at the source of the government's lie:

But if we look at our most recent statement from the US government, which is on the 29th of December, OK, we had five different branches of government, Treasury, DHS, FBI, White House presenting their accusations to underpin Obama’s throwing out 29 Russian diplomats. What was missing from all of those statements? The word WikiLeaks. It’s very strange.

Sometimes, a lie can be revealed by what is NOT said, rather than what is. The U.S. government has evidence of a Russian hacking operation which allegedly targeted important political targets such as Hillary Clinton's campaign and both political parties.. What they don't have is information connecting the dots to Wikileaks. So it is entirely possible that Wikileaks got its information from a third party, such as a whistle blower inside the Democratic Party.

This makes perfect sense. Russia would certainly want such information for themselves, but publishing it would risk unwanted attention on them. Russian leader Vladimir Putin started out in the KGB, so he has a fine appreciation of the value of information, even if it never sees the light of day.

So Obama says they have proof of Russians "hacking the election", but he doesn't mention Wikileaks. Without the Wikileaks connection, all they have is just proof the Russians are hacking political operations inside the U.S., without proof of any actual influence on the election itself.

"Russian hacking" seems to be a popular meme in the mainstream media, without any supporting facts:

Washington Post:

Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, 

say people close to investigation

As federal officials investigate suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer, they are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility, according to experts and officials close to the investigation.

An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address associated by authorities with the Russian hacking operation that infiltrated the Democratic Party. Officials told the company that traffic with this particular address is found elsewhere in the country and is not unique to Burlington Electric, suggesting the company wasn’t being targeted by the Russians. Indeed, officials say it is possible that the traffic is benign, since this particular IP address is not always connected to malicious activity.

Nothing to see here, right? Maybe...

The investigation by officials began Friday, when the Vermont utility reported its alert to federal authorities, some of whom told The Washington Post that code associated with the Russian hackers had been discovered within the system of an unnamed Vermont utility. On Friday evening, The Post published its report, and Burlington Electric released a statement identifying itself as the utility in question and saying the firm had “detected the malware” in a single laptop. The company said in its statement that the laptop was not connected to its grid systems.

The Post initially reported incorrectly that the country’s electric grid had been penetrated through a Vermont utility. After Burlington Electric released its statement saying that the potentially compromised laptop had not been connected to the grid, The Post immediately corrected its article and later added an editor’s note explaining the change.

The original story was leaked by "administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity". In other words, it was a story designed to pump up their Russian hacking narrative, but nobody wanted to take the fall for it when it was proven to be false.

So why is the Obama administration so gung-ho to prop up this Russian hacking theme? let's go back to Julian Assange for an astute observation:

The Hill

WikiLeaks founder: Obama admin trying to ‘delegitimize' Trump

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says there's an "obvious" reason the Obama administration has focused on Russia's alleged role in Democratic hacks leading up to Donald Trump's electoral win.

“They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House,” Assange said during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity airing Tuesday night, according to a transcript of excerpts from the network.

“They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president," Assange said during the interview, which was conducted at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has been staying.

Obama's motive in trying to "delegitimize" Trump? Trump is threatening to undo Obama's entire legacy. After Obamacare dies, "many thousands of government regulations added" doesn't really make for a presidential legacy. Having a legacy as a "failed experiment" doesn't sit well with most people, and Obama is hitting back in the only way he knows how: Abusing his power.

There are only 17 more days of this elitist tool.

Speaking of tools, there is CNN, Democratic Party tool...

CNN:

Adviser contradicts Trump: Russians hacked the US

A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he thinks the Russians were involved in election-related hacking of the US -- a very different view than that held by the incoming administration.

Former CIA director James Woolsey, an adviser to Trump on national security issues, told CNN's Jim Sciutto that determining who was behind the hacks is difficult, but that he believes the Russians -- and possibly others -- were involved.

However, the article's words don't quite match the interview's words, even the ones reported by CNN (bold part added by me):

"I think the Russians were in there, but it doesn't mean other people weren't, too," he said. "It's often not foolproof to say who it is because it is possible and sometimes easy to hide your tracks. There's lots of tricks."

Asked if Trump is playing the media with his comments on who was culpable, Woolsey said it was a "possibility," noting that Trump is an "expert in weaving around" on issues like this.

"Sometimes people may have been talking to somebody in the National Security Agency and have an idea that maybe it was one type of hacking rather than another," he said. "I don't think this is of substantial matter. I think it's basically just dialogue back and forth."

Note that nowhere is the Wikileaks connection made, or mentioned. If you don't make the Wikileaks connection, you don't make the "influencing the election" argument, and then all you are talking about is accessing information illegally.

By the way, what did Trump sway that got contradicted?

Trump expressed skepticism on New Year's Eve, saying, "I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else."

Look at what Trump said, and Woolsey's comment in bold above. It is almost identical in meaning.

Finally...

Washington Post:

House Republicans vote to rein in independent ethics office

Defying the wishes of their top leaders, House Republicans voted behind closed doors Monday night to rein in the independent ethics office created eight years ago in the wake of a series of embarrassing congressional scandals.

The 119-to-74 vote during a GOP conference meeting means that the House rules package expected to be adopted Tuesday, the first day of the 115th Congress, would rename the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review and place it under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee.

Under the proposed new rules, the office could not employ a spokesperson, investigate anonymous tips or refer criminal wrongdoing to prosecutors without the express consent of the Ethics Committee, which would gain the power to summarily end any OCE probe.

My twitter response:

"Office of Congressional Ethics"#Oxymoron

— Ed McGonigal (@1EMcGon1) January 3, 2017