U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

By artappraiser on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 7:30pm |

BREAKING: U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent this week to Democratic voters, from @nakashimae @AmyEGardner @isaacstanbecker and @craigtimberg https://t.co/RKhCvu0TrE
— Alan Sipress (@AlanSipress) October 21, 2020

URL:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/20/proud-boys-emails-florida/

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not only that!

Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe announces that Iranian and Russian actors obtained some U.S. voter registration information and they are using it to send disinformation to voters in attempts to sow discord https://t.co/plGqEVyOVQ
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) October 21, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 7:34pm

^^^^IMPORTANT THIS IS ABOUT a JOINT DNI & FBI PRIMETIME press conference tonight just completed and according to CNN TV I am listening to right now, the press did not get a lot of notice because law enforcement are trying to let the American public know what they know ASAP. Which is not typical and CNN suggests that FBI appeared with DNI because DNI knows it has credibility problems. And they want to rectify that on the voting issue, the want the public to know how seriously they are taking this.

"I've never seen the FBI do a rushed press conference like this!" ~Evan Perez @ CNN TV just now to Anderson Cooper on his show just started.

Edit to add: Evan Perez is emphasizing that the main message is that the Iranians are simply trying to sow chaos as Russia has already tried to do in the past, with no preference for candidate, while Russia in the past had a preference for Trump. But activity that they are seeing now is almost exclusively Iranian with purpose of sowing chaos.

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 7:57pm

Interesting that at same time there are anonymice at the White House bashing FBI Director Christopher Wray to WaPo:

“By not disputing accusations leveled by Dems and some fmr intelligence officials that the laptop’s late-season reveal could be another form of foreign election interference, the FBI gave tacit support to the idea that the emails in question are genuine” https://t.co/6caiiCnpi0
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 22, 2020

and on CNN right now the panel is discussing comparing the difference in messages coming across from Wray and Ratcliffe in tonight's press conference; I.E., that Ratcliffe mentioned that the Iranians might be trying to hurt Trump and Wray took a totally different tack, the disinformation problem in general. Clearly most agree that Wray was there to give Ratcliff credibility that this was indeed an Iranian attempt at interference.

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 8:15pm

no tweet from this guy yet since the 19th, I checked:

James Comey

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 8:30pm

The statement was made that Iran tried to harm Trump.

The fake messages threatened Democrats, how does that harm Trump?

Are people who feel that Trump who suppresses votes, think Trump should receive sympathy for having his Proud Boys used by a foreign power?

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 9:05pm

And there is no reference in the press release indicating involvement in the Proud Boys scam. Which may very well mean these entities were not involved but instead were off the shelf actions. https://t.co/eRSDORrG6Z
— Brian O'Toole (@brianoftoole) October 22, 2020

I noticed that, too: I had expected specific attribution.
— Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried) October 22, 2020

by artappraiser on Thu, 10/22/2020 - 6:19pm

Proud Boys Hoaxes, Threats, and Spam Are Surging Before the Election https://t.co/gkH5KKWooW via @thedailybeast
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) October 22, 2020

Also she has this later cavaet in general which is good to keep in mind:

If an extremist group's website claims they have 30,000 members, it doesn't mean that they have 30,000 members.

Even if they have 30,000 followers on Facebook, it doesn't mean diddlysquat if there's no proportionate engagement that suggest that number is anywhere near real.
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) October 22, 2020

by artappraiser on Thu, 10/22/2020 - 6:42pm

While I very much prefer to read commentators and analysts who are humble like this and always rethinking themselves, I must admit that when I saw this, first think I thought was BUT BUT BUT what if what has been happening to the U.S. IS the "destabilization" and "blowback"

Something I was wrong about this year is I thought this would lead to greater destabilization and blowback, when it didn't lead to much at all. https://t.co/8PP3B5uAvI
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) October 24, 2020

And then, of course, there's that a serious worldwide pandemic will always throw a wrench into the best laid geopolitical plans of mice and men.

by artappraiser on Sat, 10/24/2020 - 1:23am

It was again Trump's crazy man approach trying to force a sparring partner into an unwinnable choice. But Iranians already dealt with Hussein, they dealt with Ahmadinejad... Overall I think they played the PR, but knew going toe-to-toe with US military or even promoting a response with a terrorist attack would be stupid. Unlike a Mullah, Trump's not elected for life.

by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 10/24/2020 - 2:57am

U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

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