Asking whether they "swung" the election is an unnecessarily high bar. The question is whether they influenced the election, and the answer is a pretty clear yes. Russian hacks of the DNC and John Podesta, and the ensuing leaks, drove front-page headlines and cable news coverage for weeks in aggregate, if not more.
No, it was definitely the Russians. In addition to the clear and definitive attribution by federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies, there was significant work by private industry to support the attribution. For example the phishing email that got Podesta was included in the leak of his inbox, and traced back to phishing infrastructure that had previously (i.e. before the DNC and Podesta hacks happened) been attributed to one of the Russian APTs.
If the DNC leak impacted the election, should the blame be on leaker or on the people responsible. The DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned over the content of the emails, and the DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters over the conduct during the election.
It seems a bit like blaming the NBCUniversal for leaking the audio tape of trumps lewd conversation about women, rather than trump.
A big question is how influence the three major leaks had on the election, and from an outside perspective it seems insane that the whole US political direction get decided on embarrassing leaks rather than political subjects.
IIRC the DNC was using Crowstrike for their AV and security who interestingly has a lot of their company based in Ukraine, and both CS and DNC refused to allow the FBI access to servers and logs to verify the Russian attack.
IDK much about much, but that sure does seem questionable to me.
The RNC has since hired Crowdstrike too, even as Republican officials they support have said lots of stuff about Crowdstrike and Ukraine. The public statements are all for show.
I’m not sure that’s a big vote of confidence for me. The other take on what you wrote is the RNC watched the DNC skirt over any sort of responsibility to allow authorities to investigate such a claim and want in on that action.
So is it the Russians or the media reaction that made the difference? If I recall correctly one of Greenwald's main theses is that click-thirsty coverage of exciting-sounding stories overwhelmed more substantial topics in the 2016 election.
The Russians definitely found a flaw in the way the U.S. works with political information today, and exploited it for a big effect. And I don't think that flaw is fixed as we head into this election.
So, I agree with Greenwald that a broken media environment made it possible. But I disagree with him that that casts doubt on Russian involvement, or invalidates Russian activity as a topic of national concern.
Did Greenwald ever say he doubts Russian involvement? I know he on the side of "Trump didn't conspire" and feels that the rest of the media is mishandling the matter, but I don't think he's ever disputed the actual meddling.
(Correct me if I'm wrong; if he's actually disputing the existence of the meddling he'd go down a few notches in my esteem).
Podesta got phished. The actual email that phished him is available on Wikileaks for anyone to examine. Anyone who can set up a website and send an email can phish. Invoking Podesta as proof of "Russian hacks" says a lot more about you than about Trump (for whom I would never vote) or Russia (with whom I hope we don't have a stupid war).
A. Posesta had a password of P@ssw0rd iirc. Let’s not pretend this required some nation state espionage. He had a bad password AND entered credentials into a phishing site. He pretty much had it coming sooner or later.
B. The CONTENT of Podesta’s emails were the problem for Clinton. How much money she took from Wall Street, her public and private opinions depending who she was talking to, the very real pay-to-play “Donations” to her fund while she was Secretary. Her collusion with the media, including asking Trump to be propped up with coverage as a pied piper she “knew” she could beat. Russia didn’t make her do things that looked bad when made public, or make her skip campaigning in key states. I’m a little shocked at how all the hate is directed to the assumed-Russian messenger, when the real problem was she truly was a bad candidate who did bad things. she is responsible for Trump in many ways, yet, people years later still defending her. Makes no sense.
Edit: ok, hide the truth, don’t thank Clinton for Trump even though that’s what happened.
