Did the DNC leaks really affect the election?

I have learned throughout my long life never to say that some powerful person or institution could not have done a certain thing because doing would have been idiotic.

But it certainly would have been idiotic for Russian intelligence agents to think they could influence the 2016 election by leaking e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief.

And while that isn’t proof that they weren’t the leakers, it is a reason to reserve judgment.

The Clinton campaign leaks had little or no effect on the election outcome.  All they did was to confirm what some of us already thought about how the DNC was tied in with the Clinton primary election campaign, and Clinton was tied in with her rich donor friends.  If I had been pro-Clinton, this would not have been new information that would have changed my mind.

Within my circle of friends, I don’t know anybody who cared much about the Clinton campaign leaks.  On the other hand, everybody I know who ever handled classified information was upset by the FBI reports on Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.

The CIA statements of about possible Russian involvement in the Clinton campaign leaks have had much greater impact on American public opinion than the leaks themselves ever did.

Where is the National Security Agency in all this?  All this is in the NSA area of expertise.  The NSA would have better information than the FBI or CIA.

An alternate conspiracy theory of the DNC hacks

The Democratic National Committee’s computer system has been hacked by somebody calling themselves Guccifer 2, which some have charged is a front from the Russian security services.

I and others speculated that this might be Vladimir Putin’s way of helping his friend Donald Trump.  But “Lambert Strether,” posting on the naked capitalism web log, offers an alternate conspiracy theory.

Readers, as you know I’m always skeptical of digital evidence, arguing that “digital evidence is not evidence” absent a chain of provenance to a known and trusted creator; digital material is too easy to fake.

And I’m old enough to remember — summarizing the chain of events very tendentiously — that evil genius Karl Rove settled the controversy over Bush’s (Vietnam War-evading non-)service in the TANG (Texas Air National Guard) by (1) feeding CBS news true information (2) in discreditable form, and then (3) arranging for it to be discredited (by an Atlanta blogger named Buckhead, in a post that blew up from nothing to utter dominance in a single news cycle, an amazing achievement).  So Rove used faked true evidence to impeach the story and saved Bush’s bacon.  (The CBS reporter, Dan Rather, was later fired, along with his reporting team.)

So if I look at Guccifer, I’m seeing steps (1) and (2), and I worry about step (3).  That is, if we suppose that the information on Clinton corruption is true, but the form is discreditable, and then imagine it is discredited, Clinton’s reputation would be laundered, at least until the impeachment hearings begin.  That is, a sponsor at the DNC or from the HillaryLand would take on Rove’s role in the TANG play from Rove’s playbook.

Nice work if you can get it

Keith Alexander

After a career overseeing an agency pushing for security backdoors in technological infrastructure, former NSA chief Keith Alexander is now on Wall Street “pitching his cybersecurity services for as much as $1 million a month,” according to Bloomberg News.

Ostensibly, Alexander is asking to be paid to help secure firms against the backdoors and vulnerabilities his NSA may have helped create.

Nice work if you can get it.

via PandoDaily.

I suppose it is the same idea as hiring convicted computer hackers to be consultants on protection against other hackers.   Why not hire the uber-hacker?