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On December 15th, 2016 Donald Trump tweeted:

"If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?"

Did the Obama Administration wait until after Hillary lost to complain, or did they complain before?

DJClayworth
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    please limit the use of the "donald trump" tag for claims *about* trump and not *by* trump – Sklivvz Dec 16 '16 at 16:03
  • Maybe a good answer would also need to show that they had knowledge of the hacking before Nov. 8th? Didn't Hillary bring it up in the 3rd debate? – LCIII Dec 16 '16 at 16:16
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    The topic of Russia hacking the DNC was brought up in all debates. – ventsyv Dec 16 '16 at 16:32
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    @DJClayworth: The claim you have given is only about the White House, not Democrats as a whole. If, say, Hillary Clinton had "complained" about hacking or otherwise acted upon it prior to the election, that would address the question that is currently in the title but not the original claim. – jwodder Dec 16 '16 at 19:57
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    Please clarify whether your question is about Democrats in general or specifically the White House. Trump's quote specifically mentions the White House, not Democrats in general. – reirab Dec 16 '16 at 23:04
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    Democrat here. No. – djechlin Dec 16 '16 at 23:13
  • During one of his pre-election appearances, didn't Trump himself urge Russia to release the "missing emails"? – hdhondt Dec 17 '16 at 21:26

1 Answers1

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No, according to reporting, they wanted everyone to know about it the hacks well in advance. Republicans wanted it kept quiet.

There were reports and concerns going back to 2015. In September, there was an official finding by the CIA (but not a unified finding by all 17 national security agencies because of disagreements on some of the details) that they were hacking, and hacking to influence a particular result (Trump). The Obama administration was grappling for some time with how to deal with this without appearing to be trying to skew the results, themselves. With the official finding and report, they felt that a unified, bi-partisan approach would be the way to go.

One difference between September and now that would account for the stronger statements, and not just the election result, is that our intelligence agencies have had more time to gather and analyze information.

In September, there were all the leaks of DNC and Clinton-related emails from hacks. They knew one side had been breached, they also knew there were some minor confirmed breaches on the other side, and several thwarted attempts. The GOP claimed the one-sided nature of the leaks was because their information was better secured.

What came out more recently is that intelligence agencies were able to confirm that the GOP was also breached/hacked in a similar manner, and much more information was taken. It's this information - that both sides were compromised, but only one side seems to have had their information leaked, that lead to the greater confidence of malicious, one-sided intent.

NY Times - Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, US Says

In a more recent briefing -

Agency briefers told the senators it was now "quite clear" that electing Trump was Russia's goal, according to officials....

All the Democrats were on board for a joint statement, and a few of the Republicans were. Only a couple Republicans were against, but one of them was Mitch McConnell who said he'd claim partisanship and make a huge political stink if anyone said anything about it. Yes, the same McConnell who now claims it's important to get to the bottom of this.

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House (Washington Post)

To sum up - the White House knew about the hacking and wanted to make it known all along, but they also have much more information about intent that they couldn't support previously, so coming out with a stronger statement because they've gathered more proof, over time, can account for the fact that strong statements are being made after the election that weren't, before.

EDIT ALERT - had a typo in my quoted passage. Corrected it to say "NOW 'quite clear'", originally typed as "not 'quite clear'". That's a bit of a difference. Sorry about that.

PoloHoleSet
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    Could you add some references? Preferably first person statements by government officials. Some second hand reports (attributed to anonymous officials) can be found here: http://www.npr.org/2016/12/12/505261053/13-times-russian-hacking-came-up-in-the-presidential-campaign – ventsyv Dec 16 '16 at 16:24
  • @ventsyv - the article says the officials would only comment anonymously. I will track down the article that spoke specifically about how many were on board, and add that link, hopefully later today. – PoloHoleSet Dec 16 '16 at 16:32
  • I was hoping that since the election members of congress who were briefed on the matter might have given on the record statements about those briefings. – ventsyv Dec 16 '16 at 16:34
  • @ventsyv - Will check and see if Graham or McCain, most strongly speaking about it now, have acknowledged the briefing or not. Thanks for giving me a specific target to go after. – PoloHoleSet Dec 16 '16 at 16:36
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    Also, throughout the election, the Clinton campaign was loudly talking about the DNC hacks having come from Russian intelligence. This was brought up during the second and third debates. – rougon Dec 16 '16 at 16:48
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    Adding that the matter was raised in the presidential debates would make this an awesome answer. – DJClayworth Dec 16 '16 at 17:19
  • @DJClayworth - is that really relevant to whether the White House was raising the issue, though? Seems like the questioner is looking at the claim from the viewpoint of motivations and policy considerations for the current presidential administration. – PoloHoleSet Dec 16 '16 at 18:43
  • No the questioner is not restricting this to the "current presidential administration". – DJClayworth Dec 16 '16 at 18:45
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    This WAPO article is hardly a reference, they present no sources or evidence, and they have written these kind of articles before (claiming sites like the Ron Paul Institute and others to be platforms for Russian propaganda, which they have now started back-tracking on after legal threats). So, I'm assuming this is fake news until we see some kind of evidence. – MetaGuru Dec 16 '16 at 20:16
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    @ioSamurai The Post is reporting on a statement from the US government. If the government had not made that statement it would have refuted it. – DJClayworth Dec 16 '16 at 22:02
  • Also, see another article from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/us-formally-accuses-russia-of-stealing-dnc-emails.html?_r=0 – DJClayworth Dec 16 '16 at 22:02
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    Even now, not all U.S. intelligence agencies agree that it is "quite clear" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected. Apparently, the [FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-intelligence-idUSKBN14204E) aren't quite as confident of this as the quote in this answer suggests the CIA is. Of course, nearly all of the actual intelligence is classified and few officials have made statements on the record, which complicates having a definitive answer here. – reirab Dec 16 '16 at 22:54
  • The first three paragraphs here seems to be confusing different briefings. The briefing that was referred to by the quote given here and by the link cited here took place "last week" according to the article dated Dec 9, 2016, which would put the meeting during the week of Nov 27 - Dec 3, weeks after the election. – reirab Dec 16 '16 at 23:01
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    @reirab Kind-of drifting off-topic, but newer reports say the FBI largely agrees with the CIA's assessment http://www.npr.org/2016/12/16/505890551/fbi-cia-agree-that-russia-was-trying-to-help-trump-win-the-election – Batman Dec 17 '16 at 00:30
  • @AlexanderO'Mara It appeared that the disagreement was more over the confidence placed in that assessment. It seems there's strong agreement that it's the most likely explanation, but that they haven't yet found conclusive evidence, especially in regards to the intentions. Unfortunately, all of these reports cite unnamed sources, though, as none of the agencies has released a public position on the matter as of yet. – reirab Dec 17 '16 at 01:14
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    It's concerning that this answer has so many upvotes despite not accurately portraying what is stated in the single cited source. This really doesn't seem like a skeptics-quality answer to me. In particular, the statement about it being "quite clear" happened in **late November or early December**, not in **September** as this answer suggests, which makes it totally irrelevant to answering this question. – reirab Dec 18 '16 at 07:22
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    @DJClayworth The Post was not reporting on government official government statements. It was reporting on off-the-record statements made by unnamed government officials speaking on condition on anonymity because the intelligence remains classified. Officially confirming or denying the veracity of those statements is not legal until the intelligence is declassified. – reirab Dec 18 '16 at 07:28
  • @reirab - as of last Friday, before you made your statement with the Reuters link, all 17 agencies, including the FBI, were on board. If you feel that someone stating that it was the consensus opinion of the intelligence community, back in September, that Russia was trying to swing the elections for a specific candidate materially differs from a few weeks ago saying "now quite clear," I've edited the answer to address that. Also notable is that those involved have not refuted the statements made in the new reporting. – PoloHoleSet Dec 19 '16 at 17:49
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    @PoloHoleSet We still don't have a definitive statement either way, just more off-the-record statements made by different unnamed sources. The closest we have to an official statement about the intelligence is some sources within the CIA saying that the Director of the CIA sent out an e-mail saying the other agencies mostly agree with them now. Again, until the information is actually declassified, no official statement can legally be made either way, either to confirm or deny the veracity of anything that has been said. – reirab Dec 19 '16 at 21:36
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    @reirab - we don't, but Obama has stated publicly that they do, government officials have confirmed it, and senators from both sides are already acting as if that is the case. So "we" as in stackexchange denizens vs. "we" as a nation are two different things. Keep in mind, the question is whether this is a phony claim in response to the election results. The level of confidence and certitude in how good the intel is that you seem to be looking for is completely different from that. Critiquing my answer on that basis is complaining that I didn't go off-topic enough. – PoloHoleSet Dec 19 '16 at 21:45
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    @PoloHoleSet I was critiquing it because it appears to (still) inaccurately reflect what is stated in the single cited source. The cited source says that the September meeting was trying to get a statement to state and local governments to make sure their voting machines were secure, not to make a statement saying that the Russians were trying to affect the outcome of the election for a particular candidate as this answer suggests. At any rate, the off-topicness is another issue. The question was what the White House said before the election, not what the intelligence community says now. – reirab Dec 19 '16 at 21:50
  • @PoloHoleSet By the way, I'm not saying the White House didn't complain before the election, just that this answer doesn't seem to support that. – reirab Dec 19 '16 at 21:52
  • "according to reporting" - you only cite one report, which relies extensively on unnamed sources. In general, you should make it very clear that there are no clear sources; for a highly-political football, this is a significant problem in the quality of this answer. "There were reports and concerns going back to 2015." [Citation needed] "but not a unified finding by all 17 national security agencies" [Citation needed]. – Oddthinking Dec 19 '16 at 22:49
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    @Oddthinking - find ANY reporting on classified matters where someone will go on the record breaking the law. What is telling is that, if this was dubious, there would be parties involved, in a position to know, who would throw cold water on this. Instead, they are either affirming, or calling for even bigger investigations. – PoloHoleSet Dec 20 '16 at 14:52
  • Made some more edits to address concerns and tighten up my own claims about what was known, provably, and when. – PoloHoleSet Dec 20 '16 at 15:22
  • @PoloHoleSet: One solution is providing leaked documents. Another solution is acknowledging that the evidence is weak, and we can't make firm conclusions. – Oddthinking Dec 20 '16 at 18:37
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    @Oddthinking - and another is looking at the entirety of the situation, including a forthcoming, full report, all agencies signing on, and major players from both parties agreeing, with pretty much no actual opposition to the statements being made. Remember, also, that the original question is not asking whether conclusions being made have a bullet-proof foundation, it's asking about whether the basis is sour grapes over election results. Too many of you seem to be arguing about the one that does not speak to the question. – PoloHoleSet Dec 20 '16 at 18:44
  • Just so there are no surprises: Add references to support your bold claims - quote from sources to show they say what you claim they say, or this answer will be deleted. You can appeal to the 'entirety' when you have lots of independent evidence pointing in that direction. – Oddthinking Dec 20 '16 at 19:18
  • @Oddthinking - which claims do you think are "bold," and which ones do you think are not referenced? That there was a briefing? That's referenced, and not denied. That all agencies are on board? That's referenced and not denied. I guess I'm missing what you think is so out there. I already did edit the wording to scale back some of the parts that people had objections to. Since I'm not seeing anything that's especially "bold" in the answer, you'll have to point me to those parts in order for me to be responsive. – PoloHoleSet Dec 20 '16 at 23:13
  • @DJClayworth - Can you clarify what you mean by "the questioner is not restricting it to the current administration"? I see "the Obama Administration" specified. – PoloHoleSet Dec 20 '16 at 23:20
  • @PoloHoleSet Question has been edited since then. – DJClayworth Dec 20 '16 at 23:22
  • "There were reports and concerns going back to 2015." <- That is a perfect spot for a link, and a quote that mentions a date in 2015. – Oddthinking Dec 21 '16 at 01:19
  • "but not a unified finding by all 17 national security agencies because of disagreements on some of the details" <- That's a perfect spot for a link and a quote that mentions the disagreements. I would also appreciate a link that shows there are 17 national security agencies that would be involved in such findings. I am skeptical. I doubt "Army Intelligence and Security Command", "Air Force Intelligence", "Department of Energy, Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence", "Coast Guard Intelligence ", etc. had anything to say on this.) – Oddthinking Dec 21 '16 at 01:24
  • Keep going in that manner. Provide a reference for every claim. – Oddthinking Dec 21 '16 at 01:24
  • Sounds good, I'll add to it. – PoloHoleSet Dec 21 '16 at 02:22
  • Just to throw a cat in amongst the pigeons (and because this is an authoritative source most people will never hear of): [I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack;"](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/) – Benjol Dec 22 '16 at 12:42