Russia hacks the DNC

On Dec. 29, 2016, Obama expelled 35 suspected Russian intelligence operatives from the United States and imposed sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services. Obama also penalized four top officers of one of those services, the powerful military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U.

Intelligence agencies have concluded that the G.R.U. stole emails from the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations, with the approval of the Kremlin, and gave these emails to Wikileaks for publication.

The State Department also announced the closing of two waterfront estates — one in Upper Brookville, N.Y., and another on Maryland’s Eastern Shore — that it said were used for Russian intelligence activities.

This expulsion of the Russians by Obama raises 3 important questions:

One - Why are all these spies here in the first place?

Two - The Russians are world leaders in cyber warfare. Just two examples: In August 2015, Russian hackers seized the e-mail system used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Dec. 30, 2016, the day after Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats, a code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe was detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials. Burlington Electric detected the Malware and alerted federal authorities.(1)

During Russia’s conquest of Crimea in the Ukraine in April 2014, ground assaults were accompanied by a deluge of mostly low-tech cyberassaults on over a hundred government and industrial organizations in Poland and Ukraine, as well as attacks on the European Parliament and the European Commission.(2)

So Obama epelled the Russians for hacking the DNC, but none were expelled when the Russians launched cyber attacks on U.S. military and defense contractors and conquered Crimea.

Three - Claiming that these emails benefited Trump ignores the fact that the mainstrem media was nothing more Hillary Clinton’s propaganda machine - always making her look good and always trashing Trump. These DNC email leaks merely leveled the playing field since the media was so dishonest and unfair to Trump.