2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA: “The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday [10-4-17] warned political candidates to expect Russian operatives to try to sow chaos and manipulate upcoming elections in November and in 2018.
At a news conference, Senators Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, and Mark Warner, its vice chairman, broadly endorsed the conclusions of American spy agencies that said the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, directed a campaign of hacking and propaganda to disrupt the 2016 presidential election…
American intelligence agencies have concluded that Mr. Putin initially wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, but later tried to explicitly help President Trump’s insurgent campaign. The senators said they have reached no conclusion on whether anyone around Mr. Trump was part of that effort…
Committee investigators have pored over thousands of pages of classified intelligence, reams of documents turned over by the Trump campaign and other associates of the president and conducted interviews with many of the top officials connected to both the Trump campaign and the intelligence community. Investigators have also received material from Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter, about advertisements on their platforms linked to Russia.”
-Nicholas Fandos, “Senate Intelligence Heads Warn that Russian Election Meddling Continues,” The New York Times online, Oct. 4, 2017