Putin’s Cyberattack: No Effect on Election? Common Sense Says Otherwise.
On October 4, right before the Access Hollywood tapes broke, an article appeared in the Washington Post, describing the disappointment of Roger Stone and other backers of Donald Trump that the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks had not yet produced the “October surprise” it had been promising. “For weeks,” the article read, the Trump contingent had “hyped the tantalizing possibility” that a set of documents would be released that would “doom Hillary Clinton’s chances in November.” The promised leaks, whose origin Julian Assange would not reveal, was touted as “historic” and Texas radio host Alex Jones pronounced that “the Clintons will be devastated.” Assange recommended patience; he promised to reveal documents every week for the next ten weeks, and said that “some will have a direct bearing on the U.S. election.”
We now know, thanks to a 14-page U.S. intelligence finding released on January 6—a joint product of the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency–that the leaks were part of an intelligence operation personally ordered by Vladimir Putin with the purpose of “denying Hillary Clinton the presidency” and “installing Donald Trump in the Oval Office.” Putin had held a grudge against Clinton since 2011, the report stated, blaming her for inciting mass protests against his regime.