Full Senate briefed on Russian hacking and interference with U.S. election

On the afternoon of the 12th of January various intelligence representatives presented evidence of Russian hacking, attempts to interfere with the recent U.S. election, and the suggestion that Russian government agencies have access to undisclosed harmful information about the President-Elect of the United States to a closed session of the U.S. Senate.

Although unusual, such a closed briefing is not unique to the intelligence community.

Such closed briefings are held when it is considered that the entire Senate needs to be better informed of the important information and this only goes to emphasize the importance the intelligence community in general puts on being believed about the Russian threat to the U.S. and democracies in general given the nearly continuous denial of President-elect trump until just a few days ago.

Much worse than imagined

Senators leaving the secret briefing today on the evidence of Russian hacking and interference with the recent U.S. election, almost universally expressed shock at the information, some saying it was much worse than they had imagined and that they had previously thought it was very serious indeed.

This is, of course, not entirely a partisan issue since it is expected that the next time the Russians are just as likely to attempt to interfere with Republican candidates.

Even more important, this briefing shows that Russia is following a long-established plan of attack against democracies in general.

Labor MP Ben Bradshaw

In mid-December MP Bradshaw claimed that it is "highly probable" that Russian' head Putin's interfered in the UK’s so called Brexit referendum.

The Honorable Mr. Bradshaw also stated his opinion that “huge flows of migrants into Europe had been deliberately encouraged by Russia to destabilize the EU.”

Dissention the major goal

A number of experts point out that while Russia might have preferred a President Trump to a President Clinton, that was actually irrelevant.

The real goal was probably to destabilize the NATO organization which Russia has stated is a major concern since it was originally formed entirely to counter the old U.S.S.R.’s expansion into Europe.

Germany's position

German officials, in contrast, have said that they have no actual evidence that Russia is interfering with this year’s elections in that country.

They also say the Germans have no evidence of Russia’s meddling with the results of the Brexit referendum, “The federal government has no evidence of the alleged Russian hacking attack aimed at influencing the results of the Brexit vote in the UK.”

Trump's nominees differ with Trump

Meanwhile, many of President-Elect Trump’s nominees for critical posts such as Department of Defense have expressed great concern over the actions of the Russian government and have almost universally distanced themselves from the President-Elect’s earlier denial and later mild (at most) condemnation of the Russian cyber attacks.