Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Last updated

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Washington, D.C.
FormationFebruary 2003
TypeNon-profit

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a group of former officers of the United States Intelligence Community formed in January 2003. In February 2003, the group issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of misrepresenting U.S. national intelligence information in order to push the US and its allies toward that year's US-led invasion of Iraq. The group issued a letter stating that intelligence analysts were not being heeded by policy makers. The group initially numbered 25, mostly retired analysts. [1]

Contents

Founding members

Members in 2004 included founder Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, [2] [3] as well as William Binney, Thomas A. Drake, Patrick Eddington, Philip Giraldi, Larry C. Johnson, David MacMichael, Jesselyn Radack, Scott Ritter and others. [1] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Ray McGovern, a member of the VIPS steering committee, said VIPS had 35 members as of March 2004. [2] A year earlier, the group had 25 members. [1]

As of March 2024, the current members include, William Binney, Dick Black, Marshall Carter-Tripp, Bogdan Dzakovic, Graham E. Fuller, Philip Giraldi, Matthew Hoh, James George Jatras, Larry C. Johnson, John Kiriakou, Karen Kwiatkowski, Douglas Macgregor, Ray McGovern, Elizabeth Murray, Todd E. Pierce, Pedro Israel Orta, Scott Ritter, Coleen Rowley, Lawrence Wilkerson, Sarah G. Wilton, J. Kirk Wiebe, Robert Wing, and Ann Wright. [11]

Foundation: The Iraq war and the February 2003 memo

On February 7, 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, VIPS released a "Memorandum for The President" criticizing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech before the United Nations (UN), and warning against "a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic":

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario. Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially. ... With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons, it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein." [12] [ non-primary source needed ]

VIPS followed up with ten further memos throughout 2003 and early 2004, "assessing what the Bush administration knew about Iraq before, during, and after the war, and how that intelligence has been used–and misused". [2]

In May 2003, The New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof said that widespread outrage among intelligence professionals had led to the establishment of VIPS. [13] After the CIA chief weapons inspector David Kay in 2004 announced no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction could be found in Iraq, Michael W. Robbins opined in the magazine Mother Jones that VIPS "produced some of the most credible, and critical, analyses of the Bush Administration's handling of intelligence data in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq". [2]

Israeli influence: The August 2010 memo

On August 3, 2010, VIPS publicly released another memorandum for the President claiming that the government of Israel has a record of deceiving the U.S. government and estimated that Israel would unilaterally attack Iran "as early as this month". [14] The letter also alleges that the "Likud Lobby" has disproportionate influence on U.S. policy, giving the example of a visit to Israel by Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman. [14]

Chemical weapons in Syria

After the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria, VIPS issued an "open letter" to President Barack Obama stating that "former co-workers" and "numerous sources in the Middle East" had informed them that Syrian government forces were not responsible for the attack, contrary to the position of the US government and foreign intelligence agencies. The letter stated that there was instead "a strong circumstantial case" that the incident was a "pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters". [15] The stated purpose of the letter was to urge President Obama against using the Ghouta incident to justify military action against the Syrian government because the signatories of the letter

are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area [Ghouta]. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons. [15]

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, writing in The New Republic , commented on the take-up of the VIPS analysis by Michael Moore, WorldNetDaily and Pamela Geller. He also criticized the letter's reliance on anonymous sources, noting that the cited sources for the "most sensational claims" were conspiracy theory outlets GlobalResearch and InfoWars as well as Yossef Bodansky and MintPress News . [8]

In April 2017, VIPS wrote a memo to President Donald Trump warning of escalation in the war in Syria and alleging that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack had not occurred but rather, citing "Our U.S. Army contacts in the area," that "a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died". [16] Signatories included Scott Ritter. [17] According to Al Jazeera, "There is reason to doubt the existence of these “Army contacts." [17]

A September 2017 statement signed by five VIPS members, in response to dissenters within VIPS, said "in recent years we have seen “false-flag” attacks carried out to undergird a political narrative and objective—to blame the Syrian government for chemical attacks". [10] [18] The five members were William Binney, Skip Folden, Ed Loomis, Ray McGovern and Kirk Wiebe. [10]

Russiagate and the Trump presidency

The DNC hack

In December 2016, VIPS released a memorandum that defended Russia by criticizing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections as "evidence-free". The memorandum asserted that the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak was the result of an internal leak and not a Russian hack. [19]

On July 24, 2017, VIPS released another memorandum, co-authored by William Binney, who later admitted he had been fooled by a Russian "fabrication" by the entity "Forensicator". [20] The memorandum also argued that the DNC was not hacked, this time based on a forensic analysis conducted by the anonymous entity "Forensicator" with whom they communicated via retired IBM employee Skip Folden. This analysis was based on DNC files released by the Russian intelligence cutout Guccifer 2.0. [21] [4] The memo was released "over the substantive objections of several VIPS members". [10]

According to Patrick Lawrence's article in The Nation , the memorandum argued that the metadata in these files were altered to add Russian fingerprints, and that file transfer rate proved they were transferred locally. [22] Brian Feldman, writing in the New York magazine, criticized the report for relying on "the 'metadata' of 'locked files' that only [Forensicator] had access to" pointing out that these phrases were meaningless. Feldman described the claims in Patrick Lawrence's article as "too incoherent to even debunk" and criticized its use of "techno-gibberish". [23] The Nation's editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel said she was "appalled" after Lawrence tweeted in support of the debunked conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was responsible for the leak. [24] Vanden Heuvel said the story had nothing to do with Rich. [24]

According to John Hultquist of FireEye:

"The author of the report didn't consider a number of scenarios and breezed right past others. It completely ignores all the evidence that contradicts its claims." Rich Barger, director of security research at Splunk, pointed out that the VIPS theory "assumes that the hacker downloaded the files to a computer and then leaked it from that computer" but overlooks the likelihood that the files were copied several times before they were leaked, potentially creating new metadata each time. Barger's comments were echoed by other cyber-security experts. [25]

The Guardian Project founder Nathaniel Freitas independently reviewed Lawrence's article on behalf of The Nation, concluding that while "the work of the Forensicator is detailed and accurate," it did not prove the conclusions VIPS and Lawrence derived from it. Freitas stated that the high throughput suggested by the relevant metadata could have been achieved by a hacker under several different scenarios, including through the use of a remote access trojan, and that the leak hypothesis also requires "the target server ... to be physically on site in the building": "If the files were stored remotely 'in the cloud,' then the same criticism of 'it is not possible to get those speeds' would come into play." In sum: "At this point, given the limited available data, certainty about only a very small number of things can be achieved." [10]

"Forensicator" subsequently said that VIPS made "over-ambitious extrapolations" from their own claims. [10] Robert Dreyfuss, a contributing editor for The Nation, said Freitas' review showed that Lawrence's article was "flat-out wrong" and should be fully retracted. [18] Leonid Bershidsky, who was sympathetic to the VIPS allegations, wrote that, although VIPS had originally received favorable coverage in The New York Times in 2003, by 2017 they were only promoted by "non-mainstream publications that are easy to accuse of being channels for Russian disinformation". [26]

Some VIPS members, describing it as a "problematic memo because of troubling questions about its conclusions", refused to sign the July memo, [27] [10] including Scott Ritter, [10] [28] Philip Giraldi, [10] Jesselyn Radack [10] and former NSA technical manager Thomas A. Drake. [4] Drake said "Ray [McGovern]'s determination to publish claims he wanted to believe without checking facts and discarding evidence he didn't want to hear exactly reproduced the Iraq war intelligence failures which the VIPS group was formed to oppose." [20]

The VIPS memos were promoted by Breitbart News and Fox News, leading Trump, who is known to get his news from those sources, [29] to request Mike Pompeo to meet with VIPS's William Binney. [20] [30] [4]

Duncan Campbell of Computer Weekly investigated the claims and found that the documents on which VIPS relied were fake, and tracked their source to a pro-Russian Briton. [4] [31] After checking the source material, Binney conceded that the Forensicator material was indeed a "fabrication". [20]

Gina Haspel and QAnon

In March 2018, VIPS published a memo opposing the appointment of Gina Haspel as CIA director due to her alleged involvement in the CIA's torture program. [32]

The Financial Times and Heavy have speculated that VIPS, and in particular William Binney and Robert David Steele, may have been involved in recruiting the networks that became the QAnon pro-Trump conspiracy cult. [33] [34]

Former and current members

Two members, Bill and Kathleen Christison, resigned from the group in July 2003 following a VIPS open letter calling for the resignation of American Vice President Dick Cheney. In an open letter explaining their resignation, they said VIPS should write about policies and actions rather than personalities, and they wanted to avoid Cheney becoming a scapegoat which would end calls for further change to the Bush administration's foreign policy. They also said the memo included statements that "diminish VIPS' credibility and open it to charges of the very kind of truth-stretching that it is trying to combat". They said VIPS must be scrupulous since it is made up of "retired intelligence officers without firsthand inside information". [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray McGovern</span> US CIA officer turned political activist

Raymond McGovern is an American political activist and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and participated in preparing the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA's involvement in torture. McGovern's post-retirement work includes commenting for RT and Sputnik News, among other outlets, on intelligence and foreign policy issues. In 2003 he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WikiLeaks</span> News leak publishing organisation

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief. Its website states that it has released more than ten million documents and associated analyses. WikiLeaks' most recent publication of original documents was in 2019 and its most recent publication was in 2021. From November 2022, numerous documents on the organisation's website became inaccessible. In 2023, Assange said that WikiLeaks is no longer able to publish due to his imprisonment and the effect that US government surveillance and WikiLeaks' funding restrictions were having on potential whistleblowers.

WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing website founded by Julian Assange, has received praise as well as criticism from the public, hacktivists, journalist organisations and government officials. The organisation has revealed human rights abuses and was the target of an alleged "cyber war". Allegations have been made that Wikileaks worked with or was exploited by the Russian government and acted in a partisan manner during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Binney (intelligence official)</span> Former U.S. intelligence official and cryptoanalyst; whistleblower

William "Bill" Edward Binney is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and whistleblower. He retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.

The Democratic National Committee cyber attacks took place in 2015 and 2016, in which two groups of Russian computer hackers infiltrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network, leading to a data breach. Cybersecurity experts, as well as the U.S. government, determined that the cyberespionage was the work of Russian intelligence agencies.

The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation. These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016 and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members dating from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection. The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.

"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. According to indictments in February 2018, the persona is operated by Russian military intelligence agency GRU. On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU agents for allegedly perpetrating the cyberattacks.

In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections</span>

The Russian government was one of several foreign governments that interfered in the 2016 United States elections, with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steele dossier</span> Political opposition research report regarding the 2016 US election

The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report compiled by Christopher Steele that was published without permission as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" raw intelligence reports—"not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". It was written from June to December 2016 and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. Steele was the first to warn that Russia was seeking to elect Trump, and several other key dossier allegations made in June 2016 about the Russian government's efforts to get Trump elected were later described as "prescient" because they were corroborated six months later in the January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Mueller Report, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents.

<i>The Plot to Hack America</i> Non-fiction book by Malcolm Nance

The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election is a non-fiction book by Malcolm Nance about the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It was published in paperback, audiobook, and e-book formats in 2016 by Skyhorse Publishing. A second edition was also published the same year, and a third edition in 2017. Nance researched Russian intelligence, working as a Russian interpreter and studying KGB history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mueller special counsel investigation</span> US investigation into Russian interference in US elections

The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into 45th U.S. president Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, Mueller probe, and Mueller investigation. The investigation focused on three points:

  1. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  2. Trump associates and their connection to Russian officials and espionage
  3. Possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nunes memo</span> 2018 memo alleging FBI misconduct

The Nunes memo is a four-page memorandum written for U.S. Representative Devin Nunes by his staff and released to the public by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee on February 2, 2018. The memo alleges that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources" to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in October 2016 and in three subsequent renewals on Trump adviser Carter Page in the early phases of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

<i>Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections</i> 2017 US government report

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections is a report issued by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that assessed the extent and basis of Russia's interference in United States' elections in 2016. Published on January 6, 2017, the report includes an assessment by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the type and breadth of actions undertaken by Russia and affiliated elements during the elections. The report examines Russia's utilization of cyberspace such as hacking and the use of internet trolls and bots, and an intensive media campaign to influence public opinion in the United States. Additionally, it analyzes Russia's intentions and motivations in regards to their influence campaign. Issued in two forms, a classified version and a declassified version, the report drew its conclusions based on highly classified intelligence, an understanding of past Russian actions, and sensitive sources and methods.

This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal</span> Dispute about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections

Since 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."

This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 United States election leaks</span> Leaks during the 2016 U.S. elections

The 2016 United States election leaks were a series of publications of more than 150,000 stolen emails and other files during the U.S. presidential election campaigns released by Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks and WikiLeaks. Computer hackers allegedly affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) infiltrated information systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta, and leaked some of the stolen materials. Emails from Guccifer 2.0 to journalists suggest a link to DCLeaks, and messages WikiLeaks exchanged with Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks suggest both submitted emails to WikiLeaks.

John Kirk Wiebe is a former senior intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency and whistleblower on the matter of NSA mass surveillance of Americans. Kirk managed data collection, processing and analysis programs and has criticized the NSA's mass surveillance policies that continue today. Wiebe also agreed with Bill Binney's technical assessment that it was not true that the Russians had hacked the DNC's webserver in 2016.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence". Fox News. Associated Press. March 17, 2003. Archived from the original on January 8, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Michael W. Robbins, The Skeptical Spy Archived August 21, 2018, at the Wayback Machine , Mother Jones , March 10, 2004.
  3. ↑ "The Iraq War: In the beginning was the lie - 09.04.2018". DW.COM. April 9, 2003. Archived from the original on February 2, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Was Donald Trump behind meeting of CIA chief and conspiracy theorist?". NBC News. November 7, 2017. Archived from the original on January 13, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  5. ↑ Blake, Aaron (November 8, 2017). "Trump's CIA director keeps doing controversial - and suspiciously pro-Trump - things". The Independent. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Trump seized on a conspiracy theory called the 'insurance policy.' Now, it's at the center of an impeachment investigation". NBC News. October 3, 2019. Archived from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Trump's CrowdStrike Obsession Has Roots in DC". Washingtonian. September 25, 2019. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  8. 1 2 Ahmad, Muhammad Idrees (September 12, 2013). "The New Truthers: Americans Who Deny Syria Used Chemical Weapons". The New Republic. ISSN   0028-6583. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  9. ↑ Boot, Max (March 11, 2004). "The Fringe Fires at Bush on Iraq" Archived February 11, 2021, at the Wayback Machine . Los Angeles Times.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "A Leak or a Hack? A Forum on the VIPS Memo". The Nation. September 1, 2017. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  11. ↑ VIPS Memo The French Road to Nucler War.
  12. ↑ "Powell's UN Speech and the Case for War". Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity via Consortium News. February 5, 2003. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 22, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Save Our Spooks". The New York Times. May 30, 2003. Archived from the original on November 17, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  14. 1 2 Harkov, Lahav (August 5, 2010). "'Obama misplaced trust in Netanyahu'". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  15. 1 2 "Obama Warned on Syrian Intel". consortiumnews.com. September 6, 2013. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  16. ↑ "Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation". Consortiumnews. April 11, 2017. Archived from the original on January 17, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  17. 1 2 Ahmad, Muhammad Idrees (July 12, 2017). "Syria and the case for editorial accountability - Freedom of the Press News". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on January 27, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  18. 1 2 Wemple, Erik (September 1, 2017). "The Nation issues editor's note on story questioning whether the DNC was hacked" Archived September 25, 2020, at the Wayback Machine . The Washington Post.
  19. ↑ "US Intelligence Agencies Disagree on Russian Hacking in Presidential Poll". News18 . December 15, 2016. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "Briton ran pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign that helped Trump deny Russian links". ComputerWeekly.com. Archived from the original on October 31, 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  21. ↑ Ryan, Danielle (August 15, 2017). "What if the DNC Russian 'hack' was really a leak after all? A new report raises questions media and Democrats would rather ignore". Salon. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  22. ↑ Lawrence, Patrick (August 9, 2017). "A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year's DNC Hack". The Nation . Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 11, 2017.
  23. ↑ Feldman, Brian (August 10, 2017). "The Nation Article About the DNC Hack Is Too Incoherent to Even Debunk". New York Magazine. Archived from the original on September 10, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  24. 1 2 Wemple, Erik (August 15, 2017). "The Nation is reviewing a story casting doubt on Russian hack of DNC" Archived April 15, 2021, at the Wayback Machine . The Washington Post.
  25. ↑ Uchill, Joe (August 14, 2017). "Why the latest theory about the DNC not being hacked is probably wrong". The Hill . Archived from the original on December 21, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  26. ↑ Bershidsky, Leonid (August 10, 2017). "Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Don't Buy the Russia Story" Archived March 29, 2021, at the Wayback Machine . bloomberg.com.
  27. ↑ Kranz, Michal (November 7, 2017). "Trump reportedly told the director of the CIA to meet with a former intelligence official who claims Russia never hacked the DNC". Business Insider. Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  28. ↑ Ritter, Scott (July 28, 2017). "Time to Reassess the Roles Played by Guccifer 2.0 and Russia in the DNC 'Hack'" Archived September 24, 2021, at the Wayback Machine . Truthdig.
  29. ↑ McGraw, Meridith (April 24, 2024). "How Donald Trump Gets His News". Politico . Retrieved June 15, 2024.
  30. ↑ "CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory - at Trump's Request". The Intercept. November 7, 2017. Archived from the original on November 9, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  31. ↑ "UK Troll Outed As Fabricating Bogus 'DNC Hacked Itself' Story". Techdirt. August 2, 2018. Archived from the original on March 30, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  32. ↑ "Opinion - Trump Should Withdraw Nomination of Gina Haspel". Common Dreams. March 26, 2018. Archived from the original on January 16, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  33. ↑ "Is Thomas Schoenberger the Man Behind QAnon?". Heavy.com. October 16, 2020. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  34. ↑ "Is QAnon a game gone wrong?". Financial Times. October 16, 2020. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  35. ↑ "Letters" Archived November 29, 2020, at the Wayback Machine . Salon. July 24, 2003.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.