| The New York Times issued a correction Thursday on an article that incorrectly claimed all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that “Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get [Trump] elected.” The original article, published June 25, covered certain reactions that President Donald Trump gave in response to Russian cyber attacks and interactions with the 2016 presidential election. TheNYT’s correction notes that: “The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.” Former candidate Hillary Clinton made the claim in late May that all 17 intelligence agencies agreed “that the Russians ran an extensive information war against my campaign to influence voters in the election.” Former FBI Director James Comey refuted this false claim in a congressional hearing in May, stating that the assessment was only from the NSA, FBI and the CIA. The Daily Caller News Foundation published a fact-check June 1 that rated Clinton’s claim as “False.” |
Poster Comment:
A story that has ticked me off ever since I first heard it.
Most of the 17 agencies have absolutely no expertise or skill set to determine if Russia or anyone else is meddling in domestic U.S. politics.
Does anyone really think the Coast Guard's intel agency is expert on Russia hacking Hitlery's illegal email server? Do the Marine intel agency have any expertise to bring to bear? Of course not.
The all-17-agencies story was dumb as a rock from the very beginning. And yet we saw very little pushback on the credibility of this story from outlets like Breitbart or FNC.
It's a stupid stupid story and it always was. |
| Defense Intelligence Agency | none | Defense | 1961 |
| National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency | none | Defense | 1996 |
| National Reconnaissance Office | none | Defense | 1961 |
| National Security Agency | none | Defense | 1952 |
| Military Intelligence Corps | United States Army | Defense | 1863 |
| Office of Naval Intelligence | United States Navy | Defense | 1882 |
| Twenty-Fifth Air Force | United States Air Force | Defense | 1948 |
| Marine Corps Intelligence | United States Marine Corps | Defense | 1939 |
| Coast Guard Intelligence | United States Coast Guard | Homeland Security | 1915 |
| Office of Intelligence and Analysis | none | Homeland Security | 2007 |
| Central Intelligence Agency | none | Independent agency | 1947 |
| Bureau of Intelligence and Research | none | State | 1945 |
| Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence | none | Treasury | 2004 |
| Office of National Security Intelligence | Drug Enforcement Administration | Justice | 2006 |
| Intelligence Branch | Federal Bureau of Investigation | Justice | 2005 |
| Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence | none | Energy | 1977 |
