Why do US officials keep blaming Russia for meddling in the US election without evidence? Why has the damaging information contained in the leaked Democratic Party emails hardly been discussed?
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Thursday that at this stage, US intelligence agencies are more confident than ever that Russia was involved in hacking the Democratic Party and campaign staff emails. He went on to accuse Russia of spreading fake news and propaganda.
“Our assessment now is even more resolute than it was,” he said.
READ MORE: 'Zero proof’: Twitter reacts to Clapper’s claims that RT influenced US election
Clapper added that more detailed information on the alleged attack would be made public next week.
‘It was not a hack, but a leak’
RT asked George Galloway, former British MP, why top US officials continue to blame Russia for meddling in the US election, yet they are not ready to provide any evidence today, promising to show it next week.
“First of all, I have the benefit of knowing that – number one: it was not a hack, it was a leak. Number two: it did not come from Russia; it came from someone inside the Democratic Party. I can’t tell you more, or I’d need to kill you,” he said.
According to Galloway, “very few people, indeed, this side of Atlantic at least, believe this hysterical, made up story” for a variety of reasons.
First of all, he said, “there can be no evidence that whatever was leaked by WikiLeaks about the shambles that was the Democratic Party’s National Committee affected the outcome of the election in any way, even their own officials are saying that.”
And, he went on to say, it couldn’t have affected the election because “none of the fake news outlets” or the MSM reported about those leaks in the first place. That means the majority of American voters never knew the contents of the leaks, Galloway said.
“Secondly, not a single jot or tittle, not one iota of the information that was leaked turned out to be false – it was all true. Whoever got that true information out into even a narrow public domain should be applauded, not witch hunted in this way,” he told RT.
The third point is that “the US itself has invaded countries, subverted them, killed their presidents, attacked their presidential palaces, fought wars, invasions, occupations in order to influence the outcome of other people’s elections and other people’s choices of their political system and their leadership,” Galloway said.
Finally, Galloway concluded, “you can believe the CIA, if you like, but just remember – this is the same CIA that told you Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in such profusion that we needed to invade and occupy it, thus creating a cascade on the world of fanatic extremism, which has sent flames everywhere.”
‘Alleging Russian hacking is ironic when the NSA is essentially a hacking organization’
Admiral Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), said Thursday that Russia has been hacking other countries for years.
“As you know, Russian cyber groups have a history of aggressively hacking into other country's government, infrastructure and even election systems,” he said.
However, it has also been said there is a threat from Chinese and Iranian hackers. Yet, Russia is taking all the heat.
“Think how ironic it is for Rogers, the head of the NSA, to allege Russian hacking when in fact the NSA essentially is an entire hacking organization,” said Coleen Rowley, former FBI agent and whistleblower.
“They go to hacking conferences and conventions in order to hire hackers – that is what they do. That is what Edward Snowden’s revelations were about, which was all of the surveillance and interceptions even of Americans’ communications. And of course it is well-known that many, many other NSA type organizations in the world and private hackers do this type of thing. That is well-known. So it is very hard to point one finger at Russia, when in fact the US was hacking Angela Merkel’s telephone not so long ago, as well as many other even allied leaders in the world,” she said.
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Journalist Steve Topple described what is happening as a “two-pronged propaganda attack.”
“Firstly the US is looking to discredit Russia. We still have the ongoing situation in Syria, which isn’t going away anytime soon,” he told RT. Secondly, that fits into “the whole notion of Trump’s illegitimacy as president.”
“Russia is of course ‘supporting him,’ and they are looking to undermine Trump, and therefore undermining Russia at the same time is a double whammy for them,” he said.
In addition to hacking, there has been the accusation that Russia has used fake news to influence the American public – while the US mainstream media has been caught spreading stories that have turned out not to be true.
In Topple’s view, that’s hypocrisy – but that is not something one would not expect from the US.
“They talk about Russia and hacking into foreign countries... The US is rampant in doing this... the US is rampant in rigging foreign elections. I believe in the last count it was 81 international elections the US has interfered in since WWII,” he said.
However, there is a bigger issue at stake here, Topple said.
“It is that the public and journalists, because the US is presenting no evidence, have to either believe the state, as it were, and trust them implicitly, or say: “Look, no, we’re not going to believe anything until you present evidence.”
"And once again... the public are being manipulated and... stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do they believe the state or do they not? This lack of evidence is frustrating to say the least.”
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.