Disinformation experts doubt authenticity of leaked documents describing a Russian plot to help Trump in 2016
By: tporter@businessinsider.com (Tom Porter) 1 hr ago (MSN)
Probably should have let the dust settle prior to taking a victory lap yesterday huh? HA
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
© Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images Former cybersecurity chief Christopher testifies before Congress in December of 2020. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images
- Some experts doubt the truth of papers obtained by the Guardian purporting to come from the Kremlin.
- According to form US cyber chief Chris Krebs, they may be part of a disinformation campaign.
- The papers purport to confirm a secret Russian plot to help Donald Trump win power in 2016.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Former US cyber security chief Chris Krebs and other disinformation experts voiced skepticism of the authenticity of documents apparently revealing a secret Kremlin plot to help Donald Trump win power.
The Guardian published a report based on the documents on Thursday. It says they describe Russian President Vladimir Putin approving a plan to covertly help Trump win the US presidential election at a security council meeting in January 2016.
Russian security experts told the newspaper that details in the documents and other information indicated they were likely authentic, but the publication did not reveal how it obtained them or publish its evidence.
Krebs, who led the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division during the 2020 presidential election, was not convinced.
"This is far too convenient & reeks of #disinfo operation. It could all be individually or collectively true and at the same time planted & fake," he tweeted.
-Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) July 15, 2021
Krebs was writing in response to a tweet by Thomas Rid, an expert in Russian disinformation and a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, who noted lack of clarity regarding the source of the documents.
"This Guardian story is likely to make big waves. I would remain somewhat cautious for now, however. For a "leak" of this magnitude, we need at least some details on the chain of custody. Also note the Guardian's own hedging ("papers appear to show")," he tweeted.
The documents provoked a furious response from Trump on Thursday, who in a statement described them as "disgusting" and "fake news." A Kremlin spokesman described the account as "pulp fiction."
The Guardian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The documents purport to confirm longstanding claims that Russia launched a wide-ranging operation to back Trump's candidacy in 2016, and to reveal its motives for doing so.
According to the papers, the Kremlin believed that Trump was "mentally unstable" and that his presidency would divide and weaken the US.
It also contains apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possessed compromising personal information about Trump, a claim that has been the subject of lurid rumor since the publication of a notorious dossier by former UK spy Christopher Steele in 2016.
The dossier contained unverified claims that Trump had been recorded cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room, and alleged that the material could be used by Russia to gain leverage over him.
But according to declassified footnotes from a Justice Department inspector general report on the dossier, that claim may itself have been fed to Steele as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Fiona Hill, who advised the Trump administration on Russia policy, said in congressional testimony in 2019 that the Kremlin's goal was to undermine whoever entered the White House in 2016.
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Damn. Almost had him...............again LOL. To what end? No one knows.
Two thoughts
Trump and many of his followers didnt believe a word Chris Krebs said when Krebs said the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history", but now he is 100% right. lol.
And
is a self contradictory sentence. Something cannot be true and fake at the same time. It could be planted and true at the same time, but not fake and true at the same time.
"A Kremlin spokesman described the account as "pulp fiction.""
I know it dashes some hope that you had and I'm sorry.
I dont really follow the instructions of "Kremlin spokesmen".
The most interesting sentence in the article you seeded is Krebs saying the documents could be both planted and true. Time will tell.
But hey, run it up the pole anyway....don't need to be true for the lefties to lap it up.
I find it hypocritical that suddenly Krebs and even Thomas Rid are being cited as experts whose statements they respect. This after claiming that almost everything they have said is 'Fake news'.
Rid has written extensively about Russia's interference campaign in the 2016 election.
Krebs shot down Trump's BS about election fraud.
Any port in a storm.
No real actual "interference" can be credibly shown to have occurred.
Then someone should tell Timothy Rid, who is cited as an expert in the seed, because he has 'credibly shown' that there WAS Russian interference in multiple articles since before the 2016 election.
Describe the 'interference'. Were any votes changed or manipulated?
Attempting to influence elections is something else entirely, and everybody does it
There is foreign interference in every election in the US and it isn't just Russia. And we do our share too. It all depends on the gullibility of the citizens as to whether or not they succumb to it. Hell when it came to Trump, our own media was trying their damnedest to make sure he didn't win right up until election day and it didn't work. Even I woke up the next morning and was shocked as hell to hear that he won. I listened to the pundits that had Mrs. Clinton winning by a YUGE margin. And she didn't. I was joyfully surprised.
Go READ Rid's articles Greg. His Oct. 2016 Esquire article is especially cogent.