The American Deep State at war with itself

Top US Spy Agency Refuses to Endorse CIA’s ‘Russian Hacking’ Assessment Due to “Lack Of Evidence”

21st Century Wire says…

If anyone still thinks this whole ‘Russian hacking’ plot is not motivated by internal US politics – think again…

Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge

When the WaPo posted last Friday’s story about a “secret” CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, the readers of the Bezos-owned publication took it as gospel, despite, as we promptly noted, there being no evidence provided by the CIA, and as we learned today, the FBI openly resisting the CIA’s assessment. It now appears that once again the WaPo may have been engaging in “partial fake news”, as it did with its Nov. 24 story about “Russian propaganda fake media.”

According to Reuters, the so-called overseers of the U.S. intelligence community as it supervises the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), while not disputing the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations – something which would be unprecedented for the US spy industry and would telegraph just how partisan and broken the country’s intelligence apparatus has become – has refused to endorse the CIA’s assessment “because of a lack of conclusive evidence” that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

As Reuters conveniently notes, the ODNI position could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks. The ODNI’s position confirms that Trump was once again, you guessed it, right.

“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. Officials…

Continue this story at Zero Hedge