Sean Hannity interviews Assange

Kind of?

Assuming the content of the Podesta and DNC e-mail helped get him elected then I suppose you could say the leaking of them helped get him elected the way the transport company that delivers a donor heart to the surgeons "helps" a successful transplant.

We'll never know what the outcome would have been sans the leaked e-mail, but we do know that HRC was a flawed candidate the e-mail not-with-standing and had high unfavorables before they ever came out. We also know that her campaigning was too top down and ignored the eyes and ears on the ground.

When largely unbiased historians assess this election, neither the Russian hacking nor the e-mail content will be cited as the one of the top five reasons Trump won.

I doubt you are an expert on what historians will say in the future about Trump's victory to the WH.

Agreed I think if you mean it makes it easier for deniers to deny.

For the life of me though I don't see what intelligence would have to gain to just make up false statements. It is not as though anybody wants to go to war with Russia who has nuclear weapons. At the end of the day the only thing done will be enhanced cyberwar tools of some sort which is a good thing IMO.

I'm crushed.

There are plenty of liberal Democrats who agree with me, but then they're not experts either.

I don't believe the intelligence agencies made up false statements about Russian cyber-mischief, but there are plenty of reasons why they might, and the first and foremost is continued power.

If any group would know that the Trump team intends to shake up these agencies, it would be the CIA and NSA. I suspect that they guessed correctly that Trump would react as he did, but even if he hadn't they have set the stage for others to accuse shake-up efforts on political pay back that threatens national security. Thus the leaked report to the Washington Post which highlighted the assessment that Putin wanted Trump to win with following weeks in which no evidence was set forth.

I could, of course, be wrong about this, but if I am it's not because of the inherent honesty and integrity of our intelligence agencies.

(I should point out that I tend to exclude the FBI from membership in the Intelligence Community, and find their confirmation of the evidence persuasive if only because they are not inclined to readily support the CIA on anything. Generally speaking though, the Left now considers the FBI suspect in terms of politicization)

If the FBI Director was able to engineer a scheme to hurt Clinton's chance of winning, then certainly the CIA is able to engage in politics.

This is what these people do on a daily basis. Generally speaking they do it for the right reason which is to say to advance the interests of the US, but this doesn't preclude them from reasoning that it is in the best interests of America if their agencies were not reorganized and various leaders removed. They might even be right about that but it wouldn't be an excuse for them to become involved in domestic politics.

If there was a scheme hidden here, as I believe there was, it doesn't mean the basic finding is false or that no one should care about it. We should care though about these agencies involving themselves in domestic politics. There's no solid evidence that they were in this case, but that's not a reason to consider if they were and look for the evidence.

It doesn't seem like the scheme is going to work though. There will enough reasoned support for shaking things up and it will happen. There will be an uproar from Democrats, but the American people who voted for Trump or who are amenable to the idea of "draining the swamp" are not going to suddenly believe that waste and corruption doesn't reside within the Intelligence Community.

It has been and will continue to be amusing to watch liberals vociferously defend the CIA.

John Kennedy supposedly created DIAC to replace the CIA; I have little doubt he have gotten rid of the CIA had he lived. DT appears to be thinking along the same lines.

And the FBI, and home land security. The FBI tried to blackmail him and his brother when the conservative crook Hoover was still alive. Like the Russians under Putin will blackmail tRump and his boys.

Wow! There's a wild and woolly spew of paranoia!

But you should be celebrating because all similar signs point towards the current CIA messing with Trump.

(BTW do you really think of yourself as a courageous warrior continuing to use the juvenile "tRump" moniker? Can you be a bigger tool?)

That boy may well be a big tool, but aint nobody gunna accuse him of being the sharpest tool in the shed, eh?

This might hurt my feelings IF I had any respect for your opinions.

An idiot who doesn't respect my opinions remains an idiot whether or not his feelings are hurt.

Why would I respect the opinions of a person who is so stuck on himself that he calls one who dosent respect you an idiot? Says more about you than me.