Wait—former American intelligence operatives were the ones who hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and then gave that information to Wikileaks? That’s what Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a former intelligence officer, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on March 8. Shaffer, along with former NSA official William Binney, were brought on Hannity’s program to discuss the recent CIA leak, where methods to bypass encryption devices and hack other electronic devices were disclosed. The CIA, of course, wouldn’t comment on the nature of the documents about these programs.
“Sean, we did it [hack the DNC], not me, but our guys—former members of NSA, retired intelligence officers used these tools to break in there and get the information out. That’s what the Democrats don’t want to talk about because it doesn’t fit their narrative,” said Shaffer. Hannity seemed a bit skeptical, asking Shaffer for his sources, especially the insinuation that former operatives did this and put Russian fingerprints on it.
“I don’t have proof of it, but I’m telling you this is what I’ve heard,” replied Shaffer.
Well, there’s your first clue. Mr. Shaffer doesn’t have proof in the same fashion that Democrats don’t have evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Also, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. We all know that intelligence is a government field where information and falsehoods are disseminated in equal volumes. This theory sounds a bit off kilt—and I’m being kind. Ben Shapiro over at The Daily Wire also said this theory made no sense:
There are plausible conspiracy theories. They’re few and far between. It is not plausible that the CIA hacked the DNC in order to pin it on the Russians so as to help Hillary Clinton during the election. That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t they just, you know, avoid dumping all the DNC documents in the first place? If the Wikileaks damaged Hillary Clinton, why would the CIA pursue dump them in an attempt to help her?The theory makes no sense.
It’s just another brick in the wall of mistrust that plagues our political system now. There are plenty of reasons to distrust our intelligence community – the steady stream of leaks emanating from the bureaucratic holdovers of the Obama administration have already hamstrung the Trump administration, and we know that top-level intelligence officials like former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have lied to Americans before.
But that’s no excuse for making up conspiracies and scandals where none exist.
So, in all, don't put much faith in this theory.
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