Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections/Archive 21

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Mueller confirmed Russian interference (in lead)

I think we should say in the lead paragraph that the Mueller investigation confirmed the Russian interference in the election. It adds additional weight to all the others saying it happened. You know how people are always trying to get us to say "alleged" or otherwise to claim there is doubt whether it really happened. The Mueller investigation was charged with investigating whether there was such interference, and they concluded, in spades, that there was. So I added that to the lead paragraph, as follows: In a statement upon his resignation as special counsel, Mueller said the central conclusion of his investigation was "that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American."(ref) R2 removed it, saying "Remove Mueller statement from lead section. I appreciate the emphasis but the significance of the quote is redundant with the first sentence of the article." I disagree; I think Mueller's confirmation, and his emphasis that it was the most important conclusion in the report, is important enough to deserve a direct quote in the lead paragraph. I would be OK with deleting the wishy-washy sentence that precedes it, Former FBI director Robert Mueller led the Special Counsel investigation into the interference from May 2017 to March 2019.(ref) The important thing is his conclusion that, yes, there was interference by Russia, and I think it should be in the lead paragraph. What do others think? -- MelanieN (talk) 00:17, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

My edit summary, copied here, did a pretty decent job of summing up my position. I'd just emphasize that we say in the first sentence of our article that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections. No "alleged." (Thanks to many editors for their efforts to defend that phrasing.) That makes it the most prominent sentence in the whole article. Since this is an encyclopedia article, not an essay, there's no reason for us to repeat the same thing over again in the lead, let alone a second time in the first paragraph. Mueller's statement today about the centrality of the conclusion to the his investigation and report is very significant to Mueller report and Special counsel investigation (2017-2019). However it's not that significant, in my view, to this article. The important thing is that we say without equivocation that the Russians interfered. Which we do, in the very first sentence. R2 (bleep) 00:25, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The only objection to this would be the word "confirmed", which would be more suitable to describe if the Russian government themselves confirmed the events happened. I agree that it's much more than allegations since these have been investigated, so the best description would be to say that the Muller investigation "found" that the Russian entities had done so. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

That not quite the issue in dispute. The findings were in the report, not in today’s press statement. So if we’re going to say something about the findings, we should do so directly instead of hiding behind Mueller’s recent spoken words. R2 (bleep) 01:05, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

That's correct. It would be correct to say that Muller confirmed that the report doesn't exonerate Trump, since that is a matter of the report and not the events themselves. I was making a separate point. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:12, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

There's a very fundamental mistake being made here, which is that the Mueller Report, a set of prosecutorial claims, is being treated as if its claims were fact. The claims made in the report may one day go to trial, and if there were a conviction, that would be factual. However, to say that the allegations in the document about Russian interference "confirm" such interference would be a violation of WP:RS and WP:NPOV. The Mueller Report "says" that Russia interfered in the US election. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

This is correct, but the report should be given considerable weight itself. Likewise a trial wouldn't confirm the "interference" either, but would be considerable itself. This is all a very long way from any science that could authoritatively state things as facts. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:19, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

That is not what this discussion is about. There are a number of reliable sources that say without attribution that the Russians interfered; therefore we do the same. This has been discussed a number of times. R2 (bleep) 01:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Thucydides411, we go by what RS say, and the Mueller Report is just one of many. Are you implying that RS say that Russia did not interfere in the election? I'd sure like to see them. We know that Trump agreed with Putin's denial that Russia interfered, but then Trump is not a RS for facts, only for his own opinions. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:29, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The Mueller Report is not RS in the sense you're saying it is. I don't understand your comment about Putin and Trump. It seems to be a political tangent to me, unrelated to article improvement. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

We consider the Mueller Report to be a very RS, some say it's primary and some say it's secondary, but all agree it's a RS. The comment about Putin and Trump refers to Trump's acceptance of Putin's denial at the Helsinki summit. You can ignore that and focus on the point of my question, because your comment seems to imply that Russia did not interfere in the election. Is that what you're implying? -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:51, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the statements made by a prosecutor about the people they're investigating cannot be treated as facts. They have to be attributed. It is extremely concerning to see editors arguing otherwise.

I still don't understand what Helsinki has to do with this. Can we leave the political potshots out of this discussion? They don't help improve the article, and they give the impression of bias. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:06, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I told you to ignore that, and I asked a question. Why do you then focus on it and ignore the question? Please don't do that. Just answer my question: Are you implying that Russia did not interfere in the election? -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:36, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Thucydides411 re: "Prosecutor's facts".Tym Whittier (talk) 22:14, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Fully agreed with MelanieN. starship.paint (talk) 04:13, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Mueller did an investigation. A thorough one since it was his primary task. What he found impelled him to say that Russian's interference in the election was the primary finding of his investigation. IMO that deserves to be in the lead - where we already cite the information to members of Congress, the US intelligence community, and the DNI. IMO the Mueller investigation should be included as a fourth source. IMO it should be mentioned as a source for the allegation, either in that sentence, or better in a sentence at the end of the paragraph - since Mueller took into account the reports from the other sources and more, in effect tying it all together and drawing a strong conclusion. That is not just "a prosecutor" talking, that is an investigator who had access to all the evidence including stuff that we can't see. BTW there is no justification for saying anything at this article about obstruction of justice or about charging/not charging Trump with a crime or about "exoneration". Those issues belong in another article; they have nothing to do with the Russian interference. BTW R2, I am baffled by your saying that this strong conclusion of Mueller's, that Russia definitely interfered the election, could go in the "Mueller report" or "Special counsel investigation," but not in the article about Russian interference in the election. Huh? -- MelanieN (talk) 05:11, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I think you're reading more into my objection to your edit than it signifies. I'm in favor of saying something in the lead section summarizing Mueller's findings on Russian interference. It probably belongs in the 5th paragraph, which is about the outcomes of the investigation. What I am against is a quotation from Mueller's press statement, which came about 6 weeks after the findings were made public and added nothing new about them. R2 (bleep) 05:28, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Mueller's investigation resulted in charges being brought against a number of individuals, some of whom have not had their day in court. If the results of the investigation are to be treated as a reliable source, as you're suggesting, then should Wikipedia declare that the people who were charged are guilty? Any claim that is sourced to the Mueller investigation must be attributed, and cannot be stated as fact, based on the investigation itself. I should think this is obvious. If not, I'd like to know when we're going to start treating the results of Russian and Chinese government investigations as fact. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:56, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Mueller said, affirmatively, that Russia interfered, and I am proposing that it should be attributed to Mueller. He did not say that any of the indicted individuals were guilty or were part of the interference; quite the opposite, he said they should be presumed innocent. Affirming that a crime was committed is standard practice by spokespeople for the police etc; that is not the same as asserting that John Doe did it. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:47, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The difference between being investigated and being convicted is a red herring here. A government agency has reported something, and it's up to reliable sources to determine if the government has it right, and to what extent. Then we give the appropriate weight to what Muller has reported. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:15, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the lead today, to better conform to MOS:LEAD and to improve clarity of writing. To Melanie's point, I don't think Mueller's recent statement adds anything to the already-documented state of affairs; thus it is not lead-worthy. — JFG ^talk 15:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

• I fully agree with MelanieN. This key and indisputable finding by the Mueller investigation (this is not just Mueller himself) absolutely must be included to the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 19:13, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be from Mueller's statement today, if that is what people are objecting to. We could cite the actual report, adding its conclusion to the existing statement here that Mueller was doing an investigation. How about something like this? Former FBI director Robert Mueller led the Special Counsel investigation into the interference from May 2017 to March 2019, concluding that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law"..(ref) This is copied from the lead of Mueller Report. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The current lead text already includes: The FBI's work was taken over in May 2017 by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who led a Special Counsel investigation until March 2019. Mueller concluded that Russian interference "violated U.S. criminal law", and he indicted twenty-six Russian citizens and three Russian organizations. All of your proposed text is already there, except "in sweeping and systematic fashion". I don't see the benefit of quoting that characterization, because we already explain in detail what the Russians did, and readers can make up their own minds about how "sweeping and systematic" it was. — JFG ^talk 07:06, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Sources

No inline citation in lead

There aren't any inline citations for the lead. there's one but that lacking for the number of claims in the lead of the article.Mehdi mohammed mahmoud (talk) 07:35, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Not required. See WP:LEADCITE. R2 (bleep) 07:45, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Beat me to it...DN (talk) 01:06, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 1 June 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Quasi-unanimous opposition. — JFG ^talk 11:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

---

Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections → Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election – The common understanding of Russian election interference activities, as detailed in the Mueller Report and the vast majority of sources, is that they were trying to get Trump elected instead of Clinton. I have seen very little about attempts to influence the 2016 congressional elections. Seeking a title change to set the appropriate focus on the presidential election. — JFG ^talk 06:50, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I think we've all been thinking this, but the present title has the advantage of being shorter and simpler. I'm going to use this opportunity to again raise scepticism against using "interference" in the title. This is by no means a universal description by reliable sources, who also use words like meddling, involvement and collusion, but also use terms like hacking to describe specific actions while not providing a description for the overall situation. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI the article was initially titled Russian involvement in the 2016 United States presidential election upon its creation on 10 December 2016,[1] following a Washington Post article of 9 December that broke the story from CIA sources.[2] It was moved to Russian influence on the 2016 United States presidential election on 11 December 2016[3] (without discussion), then to Russian intervention in the 2016 United States presidential election[4] and 2016 United States election interference by Russia[5] (both on 12 December, still without discussion), and finally to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections per a February 2017 RM consensus. I think that 2+ years later, it's worth checking whether consensus may have changed. Another proposed title in the early days was Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential campaign. — JFG ^talk 13:30, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose for several reasons:
  1. As discussed when this was first floated three 3½ years ago, the scope of the election interference extended beyond the presidential elections, including, for example, intrusion into state election systems. [6]
  2. The title is already long. A longer title would be more cumbersome. WP:CONCISE
  3. Reliable sources usually omit "presidential" in the titles of their articles. WP:COMMONTITLE - MrX 🖋 11:58, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as per MrX. Also, you really can't affect a presidential election without affecting downballot elections. O3000 (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per O3000. For example, a lot of the troll-farm activity was designated to get certain groups to stay home from the polls - not to vote. That obviously would affect voting for all offices, not just president. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons stated by MrX and Melanie. Neutrality^talk 20:50, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
• Neutral. While the activities may have impacted other elections held on that day, this was merely a consequence of targeting the presidential election, including the infiltration of state government databases. It's also a red herring that sources don't use the word "presidential", since they overwhelmingly use "Trump" who was a candidate for the presidential election only. I'm leaning to oppose based on the length of the proposed title however. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:27, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Neutral - the current title should be moved to Russian interference in United States elections considering CNN's timeline which begins with September 2015 - The FBI contacts the Democratic National Committee's help desk, cautioning the IT department that at least one computer has been compromised by Russian hackers. A technician scans the system and does not find anything suspicious. It actually dates back to the 1917 Russian revolution as explained by The Nation. I suggest trimming this article down to the essential facts and instead of trying to keep with a political approach, make it encyclopedic with a more historic approach and incorporate academic/historic RS instead of just news sources. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:25, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because it covers not only the presidential elections in 2016, as noted by MrX. But nothing prevents from creating a different and more general page Russian interference in United States elections. There will be interference in all US elections, and it is already happening. My very best wishes (talk) 19:55, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Elections in the U.S. are administered by the individual states and political parties are organized on a state level. TFD (talk) 05:12, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, agreeing with MelanieN. I really appreciate the FYI background added by JFG. Shenme (talk) 20:06, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ODNI report: What "Intelligence Agencies" said in January 2017 about what the Russian Government did, and why

I just found this, scanned the cites to see if it was included among them, and did not find it. There's another cite from Politifact included, so I assume it qualifies as RS. Here's just one interesting tidbit:

Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations.

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.

Also note that "US Intelligence Agencies" characterize the effort as an "influence campaign" (vs. "interference"), which may or may not be a distinction without a difference, but still that's what the paid professionals with access to the best-possible information say. If they wanted to use the word "interference", they would have used that word, and not the word "influence". Also note the use of the word "developed", which implies that the Russian Government initially "influenced" both campaigns, and eventually preferred Trump. This is an area worth exploring, as there is a difference between "Russian Government favors Trump", and "Russian Government interferes with both campaigns, and eventually favors Trump." Also I note that the Article focuses on the "Russian Government" and it's "interference", but ignores the fact that both China and North Korea have a long history of similar actions; point being that the Article allows the Reader to believe that the Russian "interference" was something unique to both just the 2016 election, and Donald Trump. I ask whether or not the Article should give some mention to other "influencing" activities by other governments in favor of other US candidates (such as Bill Clinton) to achieve a greater neutrality and balance.Tym Whittier (talk) 15:15, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Semantics. Influence can easily be a form interference. Avoid the Whataboutism regarding China and North Korea like the plague, it leads to WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. DN (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Semantics "the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning." I assume this is a supportive statement (and not dismissive), and as Editors we should be very concerned with "linguistics" (language), logic and meaning. Also I'm not asking for a "tit for tat" recitation of who-did-what's, but rather a more global statement regarding foreign interference in other US elections to provide the Reader with some context to put this particular incident into, otherwise the Article becomes less encyclopedic, and more of a "hit piece". The very nature of the event/incident is highly political; Russia apparently chose one political Party, and one Presidential Candidate over another. The question is whether or not the encyclopedia is going to adopt a more objective and circumspect tone by including that context, or submit and succumb to the current direction of the political wind.Tym Whittier (talk) 03:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is good sourced content, and it should be included. However, the publication does NOT "ignores the fact that both China and North Korea have a long history of similar actions". you think that's a fact, but it is not. It tells there was no similar long history by China and North Korea. Also, something else is missing and should be probably be checked in other sources. Why did "the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump"? My very best wishes (talk) 16:59, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

The use of the word "developed" implies that Russian meddled/interfered/influenced the campaigns of both candidates. While admittedly weak (due to the fact that it's only implied), starting with "preference" and ignoring "developed" starts the story in the middle. Further, a scan of the Article for the words "China" and "North Korea"; the only mention of these two governments are quotes from Trump himself, instead of mentioning that there is RS to support the fact that both of these governments (at least China) have a documented history of election interference in the US. Point is, it's more than just Trump that says this, and the Article should include that information for both balance and neutrality.Tym Whittier (talk) 16:16, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Tym Whittier: You are quoting the ODNI report of January 2017, whose conclusions are already well-covered in the article. I don't see what we could add. @My very best wishes: Indeed it would be interesting to understand why Russia preferred Trump, but I'm afraid we only have hearsay and opinion about this. The only concrete element (that we already cite) is that Putin said he appreciated candidate Trump's willingness to improve relations with Russia. But that's not at all what the U.S. intelligence agencies have been saying; rather they allege that Putin saw Trump as a weak player, or that he had dangerous kompromat on him. None of those hypotheses were proven so far. — JFG ^talk 15:37, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

And yet, a search of the Article shows zero results for the unique, identifying text of the document "ICA_2017_01.pdf" shows zero results in the cites. If the conclusions are "well covered" in the Article, then where are they, when the official CIA/government document isn't even listed in the cites. Also, in terms of "opinion", the Article mentions Trump's opinion on China's influence on the election, while ignoring the substantive RS that's more than just opinion.Tym Whittier (talk) 16:16, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

The article includes a whole section dedicated to the ODNI report of January 2017: "January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment". The exact PDF document you mention is cited in support of the first phrase of this section. Besides, the full document has been imported into Wikipedia and is displayed prominently at the top of the article. If you'd like to improve the coverage, please make a concrete suggestion. — JFG ^talk 01:37, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is not new information, and unless I'm mistaken it's all already in our article. I'd like to understand from Tym specifically what he thinks should be added or changed based on this source. R2 (bleep) 16:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Well first when I discovered that the source wasn't even included in the cites, it made me wonder why not. Also note how the CIA says "...undermine the US-led liberal democratic order." and not "the Clinton campaign". I'm in the initial stages of getting into the RS, and despite that, even at this point in terms of "Article style" it seems to me that the Russian influence is part of a larger context of "foreign governments influencing American elections". I think some space in the Article should be used to explain that it's more than just the Russians, more than just Trump vs. Clinton, and more than just a single election. Also I figured that since it's the CIA, it should carry a greater level of reliability than journalists. Some quotes directly from the CIA would improve the Article.Tym Whittier (talk) 05:34, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Tym Whittier, you wrote, and later repeated, that: "Also note the use of the word "developed", which implies that the Russian Government initially "influenced" both campaigns, and eventually preferred Trump." I don't see that implication at all. Did Putin influence the Clinton campaign? What evidence from RS indicate this happened? Maybe you're seeing something I forgot. Or are you referring to the hacks, attacks, and undermining?

We know that Putin hated and feared Clinton because she was a strong leader who had spoken out against him and influenced sanctions against him. We know that he was very familiar with Trump, since Eastern European, USSR, and Russian intelligence agencies had been keeping track of his every move and action since the 1980s. Trump's anti-American sentiments were well-known to them, and the fact that his campaign members negotiated, and then enacted, changes to the GOP platform which were the exact changes which Putin had requested, as well as Trump's repetitions that he would lift the sanctions imposed by Obama, well, all these things certainly endeared him to Putin's heart. Trump was malleable and cheap, as simple flattery was enough to get him to do all kinds of things, without him getting any financial benefit, only the hope he might at some time in the future. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: You wrote about Trump's anti-American sentiments; are you sure this is what you mean??? That sounds a bit strange for a president whose every second sentence is "Make America Great Again" or "America First". You can accuse Trump of many misdeeds, but certainly not to be anti-American. — JFG ^talk 21:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

That's just a reference to Trump's 1987 full-page advertisements in major U.S. newspapers, where, immediately after returning from Russia, he bashed Reagan and his foreign policies, which were very pro-American and anti-Russian. Trump was currying favor with the Russians, so America-bashing was a good thing for him, and already then he was discussing with the Russians about running for president at some time in the future. So the "currying favor" was running both ways. In 2013 they did that again and Russians publically said they'd support his candidacy. (Americans knew nothing about this.) He started his campaign and officially ran in 2015. The rest is history. The Russians are very open about electing Trump. They see it as Putin's master stroke of genius. Some of this was described on NPR's "Fresh Air", with Terry Gross and in Luke Harding's books. Trump's early history with the Russians is very interesting. They baited him with carrots for many years. Here's another source. -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Criticizing America's foreign policy is not necessarily being anti-American, otherwise protesters of the Vietnam War could all be called anti-American… oops! That he was discussing with the Russians about running for president at some time in the future is merely Harding's speculative opinion. Enough said, lest we move into WP:FORUM territory. — JFG ^talk 11:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Did Putin influence the Clinton campaign? That's the question that I'm asking. I guess the onus is on me to go find some RS. I'm not able to go research atm. Please give me some time to go look. Also, how do I do that fancy green colored text you proficient Editors use when quoting each other?Tym Whittier (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

{{talk quote inline}}, or {{tq}} for short. R2 (bleep) 17:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

"I don't see that implication at all." Deconstruct the following two sentences: "Russia’s goals were to 1) undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, 2) denigrate Secretary Clinton, and 3) harm her electability and potential presidency. (New Sentence) We further assess Putin and the Russian government 4) developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." One assumes that the CIA lists data in order of importance, significance and/or reliability, i.e. most important first. The CIA report broke the "goals" into two sentences. First sentence, presumeably more significant, separates information from the second, which is about a "developed" preference for Trump. Last assertion, second sentence, least significant. First sentence, in order of significance is first to "undermine faith", and not "elect Trump", second to "denigrate Clinton" and not "elect Trump", and third to "harm her electability and potential presidency" (which accepts the possibilty that Trump loses). Listed last, and in a separate sentence was a "developed" preference for Trump. Nowhere in this statement does it say the CIA thought the only purpose for Russian influence was to elect Trump. I assume that if the CIA thought it were true, they would have said so explictly. But they said all of this, instead. And I believe, given that these are the apex professionals in intellgence data and it's distribution, what they didn't say is as important as what they did. Journalists then come along and cherry-pick the details and adapt them to their stories, but this is the original source of much of that data, and this is what the CIA said. I think that should carry some special significance. Not saying this source should have undue influence on the entire Article, but if there is RS to support the CIA's assertions that Russia's "goals" were more general in nature, at least in the beginning, that RS should be given more credibility than RS that is at variance with the CIA, due to the CIA's special level of reliability and/or credibility. But mostly I just noticed that the CIA's report wasn't even listed in the cites, and wondered why.Tym Whittier (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Tym, the ODNI report was heavily covered by numerous reliable, independent news reports, a number of which are cited in our article. Rather than dissecting the report yourself, which to some extent is a violation of our policy prohibiting interpretation of primary sources, you will get more traction by examining how those independent sources have interpreted the ODNI report and either citing those sources or at least explaining what you think they got wrong. R2 (bleep) 17:51, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

I read the Essay/Policy on OR from the link you posted, and asked the following question there.Tym Whittier (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Tym, I don't see anything new here that we haven't covered or already know. The ODNI report is covered and cited, including all those things which the Russians intended and did. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:58, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Cited where? As I said before, I looked and did not find. Also, the relative reliability of the CIA to sources that derive their information from the CIA report goes unaddressed. Developing Editor, asking questions. I'm going to continue to think I'm right until I find information that shows how I'm not. The faster I get that information, the sooner this gets resolved. Or maybe it turns out I'm actually right.Tym Whittier (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Tym Whittier: You wrote: As I said before, I looked and did not find. A few days ago, I pointed you to the places in the article where the ODNI report is not only cited, but fully displayed. See my comment above, at 01:37, 4 June 2019. — JFG ^talk 21:25, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Tym believes that the entire news media has fundamentally misinterpreted the ODNI report, and that we should re-write our lead section in accordance with his own interpretation. R2 (bleep) 05:07, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

At least think about it. If I'm wrong, I'd like someone to show me. I posted my perspective on your talk page to keep it off this page, and to ask how if I'm wrong, how I'm wrong. Also I take issue with your word "misinterpreted", and would prefer "characterized". Whether it's "mischaracterized" is the question. This Article's Lede uses similar, but substatively different words, and changed the order in which the assertions appeared, and leaves off other assertions the CIA report made. I think that's important, and wonder if others agree.Tym Whittier (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the premise of your argument is fundamentally flawed. You're putting way, way, way too much emphasis on a semantic dissection of 4 sentences out of an old 13-page report. The report goes into some considerable detail about how DNI came to its conclusions about Russia's motives. That detail is much more informative than the wording of 4 sentences. Moreover, we know a lot more about Russia's motives and methods now than we do when the ODNI report was published in January 2017. Even if we were to completely write off the literally thousands of reliable news reports that have summarized Russia's motives since the ODNI report (which we absolutely cannot do), consider that the Mueller Report, which included not only intelligence findings but the findings of a very extensive and thorough investigation, is a great deal more reliable than the ODNI report. My overall point is that there is no way on Earth, we're going to rewrite the first sentence of our article based on a single, out-of-date source when there are literally thousands of more recent, more reliable sources that handle the subject matter differently. R2 (bleep) 15:35, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

And yet you and others are wrangling over "encyclopedic" language and word choice in the first sentence of the lede, in another section, while the minimizing the value of the ODNI report in this one. The ODNI has language that would solve your problem in the other section, plus it provides the prioritized order that no one is talking about in that section, and some nuance i.e. "developed". It just now occured to me that we could drop the ODNI language directly into the first sentence of the Lede and dispense with the negotiating and let the apex intelligence professionals do the talking directly. I posted all this stuff on your talk page and you said you didn't want to read it. At the time I didn't notice the negotiations for the first sentence of the Lede, and now I just did. How about it?Tym Whittier (talk) 04:49, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understood my last comment. The ODNI report is one reliable source out of literally thousands, and it's an out-of-date one at that. Your fellow editors are probably not going to even consider changing our article to reflect its "characterization" as you call it until it's shown that many other sources have used that same characterization. R2 (bleep) 15:48, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

My point continues to be that much/most/all of the subsequent sources use the ODNI report as their source, and modified/adapted it to their stories. The "age" of the assertions is not the most relevent point, and they all started from the same place: ODNI. The fact that the apex intelligence gathering professionals with the best access to the best quality information made the statement and used the assertions they did, which the RS then adapts to their stories is the point. Else, where else would RS be able to discern what Putin's/Russian Government's "goals" were? The structure of the fundamental statement is to similar (between ODNI and RS), and the language between the two are too similar, for there to be any other explanation. RS got the seed of the story from ODNI. It's the original, best and most reliable source of information there is, RS used it and any variation between ODNI and RS is interpretation and characterization by the RS. ODNI gives the best information, with a pool of classifed information behind it that RS doesn't even have. Have you read the preliminary comments to the report, where ODNI gives definitions of terms, reliability, etc... predefining the report in advance of the actual report. RS doesn't do that. RS just says things, and to a great extent what RS says is directly derived from ODNI. It's the best source, IMO, and should be used in the Article, and not subsequent recharacterizations by RS.Tym Whittier (talk) 16:55, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

This is totally at odds with our core community standards. It presupposes that thousands of reliable sources from the worlds’ most reputable news outlets are in fact not reliable. It also ignores the Mueller Report—-which, I might add, was meticulously reviewed by the IC, including ODNI. R2 (bleep) 18:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I question the "totally at odds with our core community standards", and would like you to post them, and enunciate how they apply here. Further, my assertion is that the "thousands" of reliable sources have used this report for all their subsequent reporting. It's the game of "Operator", where the original message is becomes more and more distorted each time it is repeated. In short, information entropy. In order for your assertion to be true, or more accurate, those "thousands" of RS would have to have a better, and more comprehensive awareness and understanding of Putin's, and the Russian Government's goals, which means in concrete terms, a better intelligence gathering and analysis network. If this is what you are saying, please say so explictly, because I'm saying exactly the opposite of that, explicitly. I also assert that the Mueller report has little to do with the evaluation and analysis of Putin's, and the Russian's "goals", as that was not their mandate, and they were not asked to address that question. And, can you enunciate where the Mueller Report contradicts or otherwise is at variance with the ODNI's report of Putin's, and Russia's "goals"? Finally I'll add the comment that "Journalism" has a for-profit motive for creating controversy where none may exist, where the CIA has criminal penalties attached to it's policies for those that fail to do their job. When a Journalist fails to report the truth, that's a "story". When the CIA fails to report the truth, that's a crime.Tym Whittier (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Staying closer to the original question, yes, the ODNI report is a valid, even a high-quality RS. Is it "primary" or a "secondary"? I would say this is a secondary RS because it represents a summary/analysis of numerous other primary and secondary sources. My very best wishes (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

By Wikipedia's standards, the ODNI report is a primary source, because nobody has access to whichever confidential sources it purports to summarize. It's simply the voice of the top three U.S. intelligence agencies, and should always be attributed as such. — JFG ^talk 21:25, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Where can I find these standards?Tym Whittier (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

In addition to the full WP:RS policy, WP:PSTS gives a good overview of the distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary sources. — JFG ^talk 11:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

The Mueller report is a primary source. In the U.S. system of justice, prosecutors prepare cases against people but that are then presented in trials. Accused people are then able to test the prosecutor's evidence and provide their own evidence before a judge or jury makes a conclusion of the facts. This is called presumption of innocence. Media sources when reporting prosecution findings refer to them as "allegations" rather than report them as facts. TFD (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

You might be conflating the "Trump colluded with the Russians" with "Putin's and the Russian Government's goals in the 2016 election interference/influence campaign. My focus is on the Lede, with roughly approximates via synth those goals, in almost the exact same format as what the ODNI report states explicitly. My point is why use the synthesized approximation and characterization of the cumulative RS, to say almost the same thing as the ODNI, since it was the original, and most reliable, characterization?Tym Whittier (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

From the policy found at WP:PRIMARY: Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Can we close this thread now? Geogene (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I actually think the ODNI report is a secondary source, not a primary source for this purpose; moreover Tym is not proposing that we engage in any original research in our article. That being said, they haven't identified any persuasive reason why we should re-write any content (let alone the first sentence of the article) based on this single source. Their proposal has gained zero traction; unless/until it does, I consider this matter settled. R2 (bleep) 16:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Do you disagree with my assertion that the ODNI is the source used by the subequent RS, and that the RS couldn't possibly achieve any opinions on Putin's and/or Russia's "goals" without it?Tym Whittier (talk) 04:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes. And regarding your edit summary, 3PO is the one who gets deconstructed. Not R2. R2 (bleep) 04:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

References

CIA had long nurtured a Russian source

Regarding this reversion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections&diff=902880515&oldid=902879829

If the July 2018 source can be provided instead, that's great, but I think this info properly belongs here. soibangla (talk) 23:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

The July 2018 source is linked to in the source you provided. But my bigger concern is, is this really appropriate background material? I thought the Background section was for what happened before Russia's interference campaign, such as its history of disinformation campaigns and its interference in other elections. In fact, much of "Vladimir Putin" subsection seems to be about Putin's involvement in the 2016 section, not about background. I wonder if a refactoring is in order. Then this content might fit, somewhere. R2 (bleep) 00:22, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the edit flows from the preceding paragraph. So maybe just append it to that paragraph, with the July 2018 ref? soibangla (talk) 02:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I would like to see more information and coverage about the source before adding it. There are literally thousands of people "close to" Putin, so no doubt U.S. intelligence officers have spoken to at least one of them. Whether any of them provided any useful evidence is dubious and needs better explanation. TFD (talk) 20:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

The Times quite adequately reported:

The most prominent of the C.I.A.’s sources of intelligence on Russia’s election interference was a person close to Mr. Putin who provided information about his involvement, former officials have said. The source turned over evidence for one of the last major intelligence conclusions that President Barack Obama made public before leaving office: that Mr. Putin himself was behind the Russia hack. Long nurtured by the C.I.A., the source rose to a position that enabled the informant to provide key information in 2016 about the Russian leadership’s role in the interference campaign, the officials said.

soibangla (talk) 22:00, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

RfC results

A few months ago, an RfC was held to determine whether a second quote should be included to provide context for Trump's "I'm fucked" quote. I have today closed that discussion as no consensus. My explanation may be viewed at Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections/Archive 20#RfC: Should the following quote be added: "Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything.". It does not appear that the result matters, however, as the first quote is no longer in the article either. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: Thanks for your work! — JFG ^talk 22:35, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

CAATSA

User:Ahrtoodeetoo Please explain why you did this [7]. i don't see how it makes any sense Likuu (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Two reasons. First, inserting the full text of CAATSA as a file link takes up unnecessary real estate and provides little to no benefit to the article. If readers want to know more about CAATSA they can click on the hatnote. Second, the rephrasing mixed the provisions of CAATSA with reaction to the same. The two belong in separate sentences, both logically and to maintain text-source integrity. R2 (bleep) 18:22, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Punitive measures imposed on Russia – CAATSA

Here's my suggestion for how to improve the article.[8] Thoughts? -- Tobby72 (talk) 23:20, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

User:Ahrtoodeetoo, regarding your revert[9], the law is primarily designed to punish Russia for interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. — [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. -- Tobby72 (talk) 12:06, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Trump coat rack

The Authors of this article are clearly turning this into a coat rack against Trump, in that it includes it in "a series about Trump", which it's not. The article about the Special Counsel investigation is, but this one is about what Russia did, not Trump. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.240.73.26 (talk) 14:04, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Trump's contacts with the Russian government during the election are clear, so, good luck with that. DN (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Vfrickey (talk · contribs) 17:49, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

It's hard to square the statements in the lede sentence and the ones following it with our WP:NPOV ethic. it states things as fact which are now (since the Mueller Report) controversial and present one major political party's viewpoints in wikivoice. The consensus model really failed wikipedia here, and provides fodder for those who claim wikipedia is too ideologically biased to be a reliable source of information. Not only is this not a Good Article, it's an embarrassment to the wikipedia project. loupgarous (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• • A GA eval should recognize consensus and the reality of what the overwhelming number of WP:RSes report as facts.Casprings (talk) 12:41, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• reply As a semi regular contributor/reader for this article, I don't qualify as uninvolved, but I feel the consensus model was never the issue, rather, it was the distracting rhetoric by WP:FRINGE editors with various political POV... DN (talk) 07:23, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I once was proud of the anglophone wiki community and now you are covering up russiagate

How come there is no article referring to the worldwide known russiagate scandal? What happened around here in the last ten years?

Changing the name by which events are known for and after that failing to even mention that worldwide known name, and also hiding that it was a scandal is a scandal by itself and insisting in editing that kind of truth out here used to be considered good reason for ban

I'm really ashamed and sorry at the same time for you guys --Rbertoche (talk) 05:44, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

"Russiagate" redirects here. What else do we need? — JFG ^talk 06:01, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Russiagate has proven to be one of the biggest conspiracy theories since the JFK assassination. A federal court judge told Mueller to stop claiming the IRA influenced the election. The Mueller Report and court documents from Roger Stone's trial show that Crowdstrike made up the claims of Russian hacking and the FBI never verified their supposed evidence. Why would you expect Wikipedia to claim it is real when there isn't a single piece of public evidence available? 8675309 (talk) 06:14, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Just a friendly reminder, this is not a forum for soapboxing DN (talk) 06:50, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-Protection Requested

(recent edits by 8675309 that I reverted) [20] DN (talk) 23:18, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

“Alleged” Interference

On a related talk page Talk:Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, there was a discussion about “alleged” interference started by BullRangifer. However, this page is seeing such edits being made. Such changes constitute blatant vandalism that should be reverted immediately.Theoallen1 (talk) 16:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

That's all that can be done until the entire article is deleted. The whole article should be removed due to current court documents and the Mueller Report publication as well as Meuller's testimony before congress. It's a conspiracy theory and should be treated as such. 8675309 (talk) 23:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Lol. Good luck with that. Mueller said that Russia interfered in 2016 and continues to interfere today. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

L0L. Apparently you're not up on current events. A Federal Court judge recently told Mueller to stop claiming that the Russians, via the IRA, interfered in the 2016 election. 8675309 (talk) 05:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

LOL sources or nah? WP:OR ?? DN (talk) 05:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, were you trying to make a point? I couldn't tell from your cryptic post. 8675309 (talk) 08:18, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Just advice, if you want people to believe you are acting in good faith, probably best not to admit to this kind of agenda. [21]. We are here to improve articles, not mitigate them with personal points of view or original research. DN (talk) 17:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I fail to see your point. Referring to court documents and reports prepared by a Special Prosecuter are consistent with having an "agenda"? Are you implying that I'm somehow on Trump's side? Actually, I'm on the side of facts. Facts are facts, even if they exonerate a douchebag president. 8675309 (talk) 22:01, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

The entire entry is problematic. It presents partisan and unverifiable claims as fact.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Much of this article, and especially the claims of a Russian hack of emails related to the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign is problematic, as it is based on claims originated by that campaign following the embarrassing publication by WikiLeaks of emails that showed DNC collusion with the Clinton campaign during the 2016 nomination process, which had disadvantaged Bernie Sanders and favored Clinton.

The hacking claim was later repeated and amplified, first by the Washington Post which cited an "anonymous intelligence source"; and then by the New York Times and subsequently other news outlets. No evidence supporting the claim of Russian involvement in the acquisition of these emails nor provision to WikiLeaks has ever been provided to the public. In response to these claims, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, along with former British Ambassador Craig Murray specifically denied any involvement in the affair by Russia, the latter saying that the emails were taken by an insider.

That explanation was consistent with what independent forensic analysis, by a technical expert referred to as "The Forensicator", and the conclusions of former CIA officer Ray McGovern and other intelligence professionals who formed Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Their analysis makes clear that the most logical explanation - i.e. the one that meets the "Occam's Razor" test - is not a Russian hack but an insider leak. Other persons associated with VIPS have criticized the original VIPS report, stating that it does NOT prove that Russia wasn't involved. This debate is ongoing, as an article the Nation makes clear.

In a Feb. 2019 blog, former NSA Technical Director William Binney, along with former CIA officer Larry Johnson examine the allegations and show why they are problematic and unbelievable.

At best, one could argue that these are allegations, and as is argued in an article in The Nation, debatable.

McGovern, et al do not suggest that their analysis is proof that the Russians couldn't have been involved; rather that, absent any further evidence to the contrary, the most logical conclusion for the provision of DNC emails.

Furthermore, despite the allegation of a Russian hack, the allegedly hacked server was neither given to the FBI nor requested by same so no independent forensic analysis of the server itself was ever conducted.

Despite this conspicuous lack of evidence, and independent analysis and statements by others with personal knowledge to the contrary, these claims persist now three years after they were initially articulated by a political candidate.

This article should be removed or it should be carefully noted as an allegation and unproven theory of how WikiLeaks received emails related to the Clinton campaign and its relationship to the DNC. If WikiPedia is instead going to allow the publishing as fact unverified / unverifiable and disputed claims by partisan sources and by spy services, it will have damaged its credibility and reliability for a substantial part of the population. RLH1951 (talk) 05:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed inclusion of Reality Winner

See Reality Winner - After scanning through the article I did not see any mention of her. Does anyone else agree that she is relevant to the article? I'm not saying she needs her own section or anything but I'd like to know what the community thinks here. DN (talk) 20:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Creating a new page for "Russiagate conspiracy theory"

This is based off the discussion in Talk:Russiagate, but it's probably better to move this discussion here. To summarize: Russiagate is a common term used especially on more right-wing sites (see [22], [23]) -- and, of course, it's frequently mentioned by certain congresspeople. It seems to be much more commonly used to describe the "dubious origins of the Mueller investigations" as opposed to "Russian interference in the 2016 elections" itself. It might be best to create a page called Russiagate conspiracy theory, although I'm not sure whether it's premature to call it a "conspiracy theory" given that there are official investigations on it. It could start with the content from List_of_conspiracy_theories#Trump_and_Ukraine. Llightex (talk) 05:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know how other editors may feel but I think there's far too much going on to spend time focusing on creating conspiracy articles when a simple footnote would suffice. Beyond that... if you are still unsure if it's premature [24]that's your personal business, and not quite as important. DN (talk) 17:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 October 2019

It has been proven that the Clinton campaign is responsible for gathering dirt on an opponent from a foreign government to sway an election in their favor. Why aren't you reporting the truth about this? This article is inaccurate in many ways. I see it has been locked also. You should take it down instead of locking up propaganda. You are no better that what is going on in the House at present. I will never give support to Wikipedia. This will also be the last time I visit the site and I will let friends and family know how biased it is. Shameful! 12.202.188.82 (talk) 14:10, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Provide an RS for that claim.Slatersteven (talk) 14:13, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. aboideau^talk 14:30, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

This request is inaccurate on its face. Clinton employed no foreign government. If you're talking about the Steele dossier, Christopher Steele is a private citizen who retired from government service. Go enjoy your alternate facts at Conservapedia. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:33, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• James Comey 'I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting.'.webm

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC about requested name change at Trump–Russia dossier

Please participate:

• Talk:Trump–Russia dossier#Requested move 13 December 2019

BullRangifer (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

add Kim Zetter's How Close Did Russia Really Come to Hacking the 2016 Election? ?

• How Close Did Russia Really Come to Hacking the 2016 Election?; Government reports indicate a Florida election technology company was hacked in 2016. There’s plenty the public doesn’t know about the incident—but should—going into 2020. by Kim Zetter Politico.com 12/26/2019

X1\ (talk) 01:18, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Concerns about neutrality

This article adopts the convention that the lead section is not referenced. I’m not opposed to this convention, with two caveats:

1. Per Lead section

   Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

   That was deliberately written generally, to avoid black and white prescriptions, but this article does not remotely qualify as ‘’non-controversial’’, so the decision not to include citations is worth discussing.
2. It is my opinion that statements in a lead section without inline citations must be inequitably supported by cited text in the body, and those citations must meet strong standards of being, in the aggregate, unbiased and comprehensive. To lean on a canonical example, if the lead section of an article stated:

   The sky is blue

   I would have some concerns, even if the body of the article (e.g. Diffuse sky radiation contained the statement:

   For the example of the Sun at zenith, during broad daylight, the sky is blue due to Rayleigh scattering,…

   as the statement in the body includes the important qualifications that we are talking about broad daylight, not at night.

With that as background, I am very troubled by statements such as:

The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goal of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States.

It is in the voice of Wikipedia, so doesn’t include qualifications such as, “some experts aver…” or “according to X…”. I’m not troubled by the third of the three conclusions “increasing political and social discord in the United States” but the first two are very broad and I don’t know that they stand up to scrutiny. Importantly, I don’t doubt for a second that there is some evidence supporting the contentions, but one only has to think about the third conclusion for a few seconds to realize that it may well be the case that there is evidence in support of the first two, as well as other evidence leading to a different conclusion.

When I look for the support in the main body, I see:

In December 2016, two senior intelligence officials told several U.S. news media outlets that they were highly confident that the operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election was personally directed by Vladimir Putin. Under Putin's direction, the goals of the operation evolved from first undermining American's trust in their democracy to undermining Clinton's campaign, and by the fall of 2016 to directly helping Trump's campaign, because Putin thought Trump would ease economic sanctions.

Without yet discussing the sources, it is clear that the statement in the body is more nuanced than the summary in the lead section. It suggests that the Russians were generally trying to undermine trust, and only later changed to actively undermining Clinton and supporting Trump (which, given the broad expectation that Clinton was likely to win, was arguably in furtherance of the general goal of undermining trust.)

However, the statement has two cites, one of which is an Al Jazeera source, citing two unnamed officials, then leans heavily on the Steele dossier, which is now widely understood to be largely unverified. This is exceedingly thin gruel for such a blanket statement.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't have any concerns about the lead saying that the sky is blue. Geogene (talk) 17:18, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Geogene, You should, because that statement, unqualified is inaccurate. As I write this the sky is white, bordering on gray. S Philbrick(Talk) 23:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

But, as you say, this is largely opinion. There are competing essays on the subject. Geogene (talk) 23:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, if you claim that this subject is controversial, then you should have no trouble finding current reliable sources that dispute that conclusion. Geogene (talk) 17:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Geogene, I don't have any difficulties finding such citations, but that misses the point. Can we agree that a statement in Wikipedia's voice (which is not the case for all statements), needs to be neutral and unbiased? S Philbrick(Talk) 23:17, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

My definition of neutral is to follow the sourcing. I haven't seen those reliable sources that you say seriously doubt Russia's interference. Geogene (talk) 23:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Geogene, My definition of neutral is to follow the sourcing (but that means reviewing many relevant sources, not just the ones that support a particular POV.) I've already pointed out that the statement in the article does not follow the sourcing. Do you agree that "a statement in Wikipedia's voice (which is not the case for all statements), needs to be neutral and unbiased"? S Philbrick(Talk) 14:03, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

And Wikipedia's definition of neutrality is that we reflect what RS say, not all sources.Slatersteven (talk) 14:11, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I've already pointed out that the statement in the article does not follow the sourcing. No. You've made that claim twice now, without producing evidence. Geogene (talk) 19:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• User:Sphilbrick - I agree that United States presidential election, 2016 – especially allegations of Russian involvement is a bit contentious. It is after all in WP:CONT, the history here shows occasional reverts, there are as you note differences in phrasing/emphasis, and ... well it involves Politics which should make it suspect right there. But there seem several points about two subtopics for the first line.

1) LEAD handling differing from body content, and factual correctness/accuracy of wording. Yes, the lead first line saying “The Russian government interfered...” is a statement of conclusion instead of saying the article topic (and content) being the US Government charge about it. And yes, the three goals do not match the body or RS at importance/precedence and the timing - of first affecting democracy, of Hillary as later (e.g. helping Stein and Sanders) and Trump only near the end (he wasn’t even the candidate when this started). Minor point, the grammar also errs at “the goal” (singular) since three goals are listed. (I will BOLDly fix that.)

2) POV of the US stated as fact, or stated in POV of one portion of US. The POV of U.S. RS may (does) differ from RS elsewhere over how much to say these are “alleged interference” or just reputed “involvement”, how credible to say they are, or even if acting on social media and the revealing of secret rigging of the primaries is evil. The US President Trump has stated it unproven here), and Putin has denied it here, and there hasn’t been anything like a court conviction. That POVs of factions within the US differ is hopefully obvious, that there are opinions the emphasis is denialism, or that it was not a big factor, or that collusion is accepted, or that Trump should be impeached ....

I suggest separate the two items - make a new thread for Allegation phrasing, and a different one for Goals phrasing. In both, I think there is good support in what the body *already* has, but perhaps more RS would help. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The US President Trump has stated it unproven, and Putin has denied it. Neither Donald Trump nor Vladimir Putin are reliable secondary sources on the topic. The fact that some deny something does not require Wikipedia to take the denial seriously, as it says in the neutrality policy, There are virtually no topics that could proceed without making some assumptions that someone would find controversial. There is no point in even having a discussion on this until those reliable, secondary sources that doubt the interference are produced.

The WP:YESPOV section of the neutrality policy states,

Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements.

(emphasis mine) Because you are trying to demote the established fact that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to a mere opinion, you should be able to produce the reliable secondary sources that contest that the interference happened. I've asked for those sources three times now, where are they? Geogene (talk) 22:33, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Geogene, You are mistating the burden of proof. I'm not trying to "demote" an established fact as mere opinion, I am pointing out that what has been written as fact in the voice of Wikipedia doesn't even match what the provided sources say. The burden is on you to demonstrate that the claim in the lead follows from the sources, and it does not. S Philbrick(Talk) 11:45, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sphilbrick you're seeking to alter a long-standing consensus wording of what was recently one of the highest profile pages in Wikipedia. If it's seriously contested (that's the phrasing from policy) then you can produce reliable secondary sources that do that. You haven't done that by now because it's not being contested. As I see it tje burden of proof is on you, per WP:ONUS. Geogene (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Markbassett and Sphilbrick: In my view, attributing the accusation in the lead would be the obvious thing to do, as I've argued before on this page. Nevertheless, given the acrimony and contention of this issue here in the past, such a decision would require an RfC with very wide participation in the Wikipedia community. -Darouet (talk) 17:50, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Examples of relevant discussion here [25] and here [26]. Geogene (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Darouet the guidance of WP:LEAD is that the lede should be a summary of the article -- so it should match the article. And the article should match to the cites -- including where they use 'alleged' or 'accused' -- and not bend what it is they were reporting nor portray it as the Truth. I do observe that while there were few RS in the United States that do not agree with 'collusion' or even certainty of 'interference', other countries generally it seems related only as news of an accusation by Obama, and not given much coverage. For example the French wiki on the election only say it is an 'accusation' and to "a cybernetic campaign "to disturb and discredit the American presidential race." No further details such as mentioning of discrediting Hillary or favoring Trump. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:50, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• The sourcing and neutrality of the first sentence has been discussed ad nauseum. If the sources are now missing, then the appropriate solution is to restore them, either in the body or in the lead, not to remove or change the first sentence. R2 (bleep) 21:38, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Per other. WP:censored. Clearly consensus that Russia interfered. The sky is blue and the earth is round.Casprings (talk) 14:06, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

There is currently an ANI thread related to this article

There is currently a discussion at ANI relating to this article.See here. SPECIFICO talk 22:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

What is ANI? ---Dagme (talk) 17:06, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election

United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf
• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf
• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume3.pdf
• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume4.pdf
• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume4_Excerpt.pdf NEW Declassifications, July 2020
• https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf NEW

Oko5ekmi5 (talk) 17:15, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 June 2020

The entire article is disinformation and should be deleted and started over using the Meuller investigation report as a basis for showing there was no Trump connection to Russian Interference, if any. 24.246.182.181 (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Declined. The article never asserts that there was collusion. Geogene (talk) 21:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Really? Well, what about the first sentence? "Never asserts", yeah. Actually, I am Russian (and in opposition to Putin) and it is still offensive for me to see such accusations in 2020. You guys made the new "blood libel" for your inner politic goals. Just imagine something same about US in Russia. What would you feel? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.113.164.5 (talk) 14:41, June 27, 2020 (UTC)

What about the first sentence? The Russian government interfered, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, whether or not they actively "colluded" with the Trump campaign to that extent. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:24, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

You cannot have the interference without a "collusion" like you cannot have the marriage without a consent to get married. Because without them these things could not be named as such as you name it. It is just a form of lobbying, totally same like Israel and Saudi Arabia do. Feel the difference. If the sky is still blue, of course.37.113.164.5 (talk)

You cannot have the interference without a "collusion". Of course you can, what a strange assertion. Bot farms run by Russian hackers is a fact. GRU infiltration of American servers is a fact. What is strongly accused, but not proven definitively, is if the Trump knew about and administration coordinated these events. ValarianB (talk) 19:07, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The first citation in this article appears 2500+ characters in.

Every single statement in the first 5 paragraphs in this article is uncorroborated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.253.60.211 (talk) 16:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

See MOS:LEADCITE. Everything in the lead is corroborated in the body. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no citation for claim against Flynn

"He was in Moscow to give a paid speech which he failed to disclose as is required of former high-ranking military officers." neither of the two footnotes for this paragraph substantiate this claim. Just another obvious bias in this article. This whole sections starts with guilt by association with is weak sauce sprinkled on failed narrative copypasta. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.163.157.140 (talk) 09:35, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

There is no bias. This is common knowledge, but a source should be there, so  Done.[27] -- Valjean (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Current status of attempts to trash Russia investigation

This is an excellent summary:

• Trump, Barr at odds over slow pace of Durham investigation, Associated Press, Oct. 8, 2020

"But a year and a half into the investigation, and with less than one month until Election Day, there has been only one criminal case... Even the outlines of the case involving FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in the Durham probe, were already known before he was charged. And the case against him didn’t allege any broader FBI conspiracy to go after Trump.... A report from the Justice Department’s inspector general in December knocked down multiple lines of attack against the Russia investigation, finding that it was properly opened and that law enforcement leaders were not motivated by political bias."

It's really hard to trash an investigation that was proper and necessary, especially when even Republicans appointed by Trump keep confirming that fact. Trump is really frustrated by that fact and that only one person has been charged, and that for an honest mistake with no evidence of an intent to deceive. -- Valjean (talk) 16:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Your statement that there is no evidence of an intent to deceive is false. See here for example. Here's what Clinesmith pled guilty to: On or about June 19, 2017, within the District of Columbia, the defendant, KEVIN CLINESMITH, did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document, knowing the same to contain a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the Government of the United States. Specifically, on or about June 19, 2017, the defendant altered the OGA Liaison's June 15, 2017 email by adding that Individual #1 "was not a source" and then forwarded the email to the SSA, when in truth, and in fact, and as the defendant well knew, the original June 15, 2017 email from the OGA Liaison did not contain the words "not a source.". Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

He truly did not believe that Carter Page had been a source, likely because Page's actions were contrary to what a true source would do. (Page told his Russian agent contacts that the FBI was watching them. That's not good.) When Clinesmith added the word "not", he thought he was correcting an error. In fact, Page was classified as a "contact" (IOW the FBI could and did "contact" him and question him), but was classified as a source that could be "activated", likely because he could not be trusted to actually work for the FBI in the way normal CHSes do.

The way that Clinesmith sent in his report, providing all the documentation that would show his use of the word "not" was actually erroneous, is one of the factors showing a lack of intent to deceive, and part of why they aren't throwing the book at him in a much more vigorous manner. He was not acting with any bias against Trump. What he did was wrong, and he's paying the price. The contrast between his actions and the actions of Flynn are notable, in that Flynn was questioned and provided several opportunities to be honest, yet he persisted in blatantly lying several times, and yet Trump pardons him, and Trump's supporters see no problem with Flynn's actions, which were deliberately deceptive, and instead come down hard on Clinesmith. Double standard much. SMH. -- Valjean (talk) 19:01, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

His guilty plea, which says that he made false statements willingly and knowingly, is obviously evidence that he made false statements willingly and knowingly. I'm not even saying that it is conclusive evidence, and you obviously think that his plea isn't conclusive and that he didn't mean it when he pled guilty. But let's not make this more complicated than it is: "no evidence" is not correct. Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:08, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know all the details, but it appears he has signed on to a blanket confession, likely in exchange for not getting a harsher treatment. I wouldn't place too much weight on every word there. He has apologized profusely and stated that he had no intent to deceive, but his actions did have that effect and had some consequences for the acceptance of the last two FISA applications. If he hadn't done what he did, the application process might have been interrupted. Instead, those last two have been ruled improper, or something like that. Carter Page's feelings ended up getting hurt, but there were no further real consequences. The FBI did a good job of keeping the investigation quiet so as not to interfere in the election. OTOH, Comey's actions were decisive. The polls changed quite a bit immediately after he announced the reopening of the emails investigation, which turned up nothing of consequence. -- Valjean (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

More relevant info:

• Barr Tried to Prove a Deep State Plot Against Trump. He Failed.

"Axios confirms that Barr has been breaking the news to top Republicans that Durham won’t have anything before the election. “Barr is communicating that Durham is taking his investigation extremely seriously and is focused on winning prosecutions,” the story notes. This is certainly one explanation. Another, more plausible explanation is that Durham has not been able to find any crimes because they don’t exist." (emphasis added)

"Barr has turned the Russia investigation upside-down by scrubbing every step for cut corners. They’ve found the equivalent of low-level staffers neglecting to put cover sheets on their TPS reports. But his narrative that the entire Russia investigation was a sinister coup attempt has fallen flat because it is utterly false.

“This is the nightmare scenario,” a Republican aide tells Axios, “Essentially, the year and a half of arguably the number one issue for the Republican base is virtually meaningless if this doesn’t happen before the election.”"

• Partisan Claims of ‘Russia Hoax’ Revived Ahead of 2020 Election
• Trump is desperate, so ‘Obamagate’ is back. But it still makes no sense.

Valjean (talk) 15:19, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Go ahead and post as many sources as you want. A guilty plea is some evidence (and so not no evidence) of guilt. It isn't a complicated point that I'm making. Shinealittlelight (talk) 20:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Those links are making points unrelated to Clinesmith.

"Evidence of guilt" and "evidence of an intent to deceive" are two very different things. Clinesmith had no intent to deceive, and, AFAIK, the investigation found no such evidence. Have you seen such evidence anywhere? Do you have any RS which proved he intended to deceive anyone? His actions indicated a lack of intent, otherwise, he would not have included evidence that showed he was in error. He goofed and has accepted responsibility for his error.

“Kevin deeply regrets having altered the email,” Justin Shur, a lawyer for Clinesmith, told Reuters in an email.
“It was never his intent to mislead the court or his colleagues as he believed the information he relayed was accurate. But Kevin understands what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility,” Shur added.[28]

This error does not overthrow the whole Russia investigation or in any manner weaken the conclusions of all the investigations. The Russians interfered in the election and "the Trump campaign knew about it, welcomed it and lied about it":

Horowitz found zero evidence that the FBI interfered in the election, spied on the Trump campaign or plotted to overthrow Trump. By contrast, there is irrefutable evidence that Russia interfered in our election — and that the Trump campaign knew about it, welcomed it and lied about it.[29]

Valjean (talk) 23:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Have you seen such evidence anywhere? Yes, the plea he agreed with states "On or about June 19, 2017, within the District of Columbia, the defendant, KEVIN CLINESMITH, did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document, knowing the same to contain a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the Government of the United States." So yeah, that's evidence. Not rocket science here. People plea to things that aren't true all the time, so of course you can still argue the point. But don't tell us that there's no evidence when the guy literally pleas guilty to willfully and knowingly doing this. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Then it appears that Clinesmith is giving conflicting messages, or is one about what he did, and the other about his motivations? -- Valjean (talk) 14:39, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right. In the plea, he admits to intentional wrongdoing, and then publicly he (or his lawyer anyway) says he didn't mean it. So without more information it's hard to know exactly what's going on. But the plea is some evidence that he intentionally broke the law. Shinealittlelight (talk) 14:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Trump and his Campaign were "active participants" in the interference: they coordinated, magnified, and welcomed the Russian activity.

Currently we have this in the lead: "though the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian activities and expected to benefit from them"

Where in the body do we deal with that information?

This finding of the Senate Intelligence Committee should be included:

The Committee's Report clearly shows that Trump and his Campaign were not mere bystanders in this attack - they were active participants. They coordinated their activities with the releases of the hacked Russian data, magnified the effects of a known Russian campaign, and welcomed the mutual benefit from the Russian activity. p. 944

The italics are original. -- Valjean (talk) 02:07, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Sources

"they coordinated ... the Russian activity" statement is wrong (if such would be uncovered, this would be a crime). They coordinated their own activities, not Russians' activities. As in: Russians send hacked emails to Wikileaks, Trump campaign talks about these emails. As to magnified, and welcomed, this is what any competent campaign is expected to do. Who in their right mind would be sad that their opponent is getting smeared? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.82.135.53 (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Revise the whole article based on new recent released information by DNI

Base on recent new information released by DNI, we need to revise the whole Russian Meddling story.

From Washington Post, 09/29/2020, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday revealed a bombshell allegation that Hillary Clinton ordered “a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” by linking President Trump to Russia in 2016 — and that then-President Barack Obama knew about her possible role.

Clinton’s alleged July 2016 plot would tar Trump by “tying him to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee,” Ratcliffe wrote Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Handwritten notes by then-CIA Director John Brennan, who now is a fiery anti-Trump commentator, say that Brennan briefed Obama on “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henryng20 (talk • contribs) 17:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Henryng20, this is Russian disinformation.[30][31] We may add that the DNI is spreading Russian disinformation to the 2020 interference article, but will not otherwise make those changes. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:14, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

You cited the wrong Post. soibangla (talk) 18:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Soibangla, ha! I wondered about that. The "bombshell allegation" line definitely didn't sound like WaPo. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Ratcliffe is not a reliable source, and even *he* says in the letter that the allegations may have been "fabricated." In fact, the allegations have been thoroughly rejected and have been reliably described as disinformation. R2 (bleep) 18:54, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo: Where do you see the allegations have been thoroughly rejected and have been reliably described as disinformation? AP says The document also clearly states that American intelligence officials do not know whether this claim is accurate, an exaggeration, or a lie. Thx, Humanengr (talk) 06:15, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Humanengr, above Muboshgu provided two good sources about this Russian disinformation.[32][33] -- Valjean (talk) 01:19, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Valjean and Muboshgu: Reuters says Moreover, a U.S. official said, the material Ratcliffe supplied to Graham in a letter the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman released on Tuesday was “selective” and misrepresented intelligence reporting.; Radcliffe noted that it was unverified by U.S. intelligence agencies and “may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”; then some comments by unnamed sources. Politico says unverified information; … in his letter to Graham, Ratcliffe noted that the U.S. intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”; a loose characterization by an identified source; and Ratcliffe said in a statement: “To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the Intelligence Community. I’ll be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days.”. It has not been ‘thoroughly rejected’ nor has it been classified as ‘disinformation’. Humanengr (talk) 03:34, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Duh! So Ratcliffe selectively misrepresents intelligence reports (this administration and GOP politicians do this all the time) to make it sound like a huge "gotcha" thing and then gets called out for his deception and tries to cover his ass. This happened to Barr and his deceptive coverage of the Mueller report. This is par for the course with this administration. They seem to be ignorant of a basic fact of life, "be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23) Facts win out and liars get exposed. This whole "investigate the investigators" exercise (including Durham's investigation) has been described by RS as an attempt to cover-up Trump's misdeeds, and Barr and Ratcliffe are abusing their powers (they are supposed to be apolitical and work for the country, not the president) to please Trump. They exaggerate any specific imperfections and mistakes (they do exist for very limited and targeted topics) about the dossier and FISA warrants and try to make them appear to be so significant that they undo the whole Russia investigation's conclusions that proved that Russia hacked the DNC (and RNC) and interfered in the election at the behest of Trump to help him cheat his way into the White House. Nah, not buying it. Those conclusions still stand. The dossier, though flawed (we have always known this), is not fake or filled with Russian disinformation (the FBI examined this and found none); many of its allegations have been proven true; the Russians did indeed hack and interfere to help Trump; Trump welcomed that help; Assange helped the Russians; the Russians are still interfering in 2020 to help Trump; Trump is "aiding and abetting" that interference; the now-fired heads of all our intelligence agencies have publicly stated that Trump is a Russian asset who acts like a man being blackmailed and that he is a danger to national security, etc. That is all still true. Please don't attempt to make "gotcha" revelations mean more than they do. -- Valjean (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

You still haven't cited RS saying that what Ratcliffe provided is disinformation. Humanengr (talk) 20:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

According to the New York Times, "The intelligence agencies have stopped short of definitively assessing the material as disinformation." [34] Considering that, your Sealioning of other editors over a talk page remark, the allegations have been thoroughly rejected and have been reliably described as disinformation, a remark that is true, is pointless and disruptive. Geogene (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Even while in the hospital, Trump continued carrying water for the Russians, and Ratcliffe was part of it: Trump rewrites the Russia probe from the hospital. The president declassified intelligence documents meant to implicate Clinton in 2016 meddling, but officials say they're misleading." -- Valjean (talk) 02:09, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow! Ratcliffe is carrying water for the Russians, as do Barr and Trump.

Barr often abuses his power, as when he unmasked a dossier primary sub-source. That type of thing threatens national security. Many reliable sources commented on his politically-motivated move and how dangerous and irresponsible it was. Russian intelligence loves it when Trump's people expose the inner workings of our intelligence agencies. That is normally considered traitorous behavior because it undoes decades of hard work and leaves us vulnerable. That's what this whole "investigating the investigators" business does and why it's unprecedented and wrong. Barr's misuse of the DOJ is egregious. It is supposed to be apolitical and serve the country, not the president. 1,600 former Justice Department lawyers accuse Barr of using DOJ to help Trump in election.

What a load of TDS-induced nonsense. "We will investigate you for 3 years, but you can not investigate us - its treason!". Do you even listen to yourself? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.82.135.53 (talk) 19:10, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

"Many reliable sources commented on his politically-motivated move and how dangerous and irresponsible it was." LOL. What is a "reliable source of opinion"? Opinions are not facts, they can not be "reliable" or "not reliable". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.82.135.53 (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Ratcliffe is also abusing his position for political purposes by literally releasing Russian disinformation that was already rejected by bipartisan Senate panel. Former top officials were aghast at the move by John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence. When the DNI carries water for the enemy, something's seriously wrong.

Trump does it too: Trump’s ex-national security adviser says president is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin. That's the definition of treason, especially when it aides the enemy's military (GRU is military intelligence) attack on our country. We are at war and Trump helps the enemy. He did this in 2016 and he continues to deny and not condemn the continued Russian attacks on our elections because it helps him win. Hillary called him Putins puppet, and Biden called him Putin's puppy. Those are pretty accurate descriptions. The leaders of all our intelligence agencies have publicly called Trump a Russian asset and openly speculated about how he acts like a man being blackmailed, and who acts in the interests of himself and Russia and against American interests. They consider him a threat to national security. Trump has fired them, thus strengthening such suspicions. -- Valjean (talk) 21:38, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Just so I'm clear, Ratcliffe, Barr, and Trump are carrying water for Russians. Barr often abuses his power, threatening national security, with what is normally considered traitorous behavior. Barr has also egregiously misused the DOJ. Ratcliffe abused his position and carried water for the enemy. Trump also did that too, and committed treason, actively helping the enemy. An accurate description of Trump would be Putin's puppet, or Putin's puppy. He's also a Russian asset, and the president of the USA is a threat to USA national security? Does that sum up your position? Mr Ernie (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Previously secret portions of the Mueller Report released

here

Snips:

1. Although Wikileaks published emails stolen from the DNC in July and October 2016 and Stone — a close associate to Donald Trump — appeared to know in advance the materials were coming, investigators “did not have sufficient evidence” to prove active participation in the hacks or knowledge that the electronic thefts were continuing. In addition, federal prosecutors could not establish that the hacked emails amounted to campaign contributions benefitting Trump’s election chances and furthermore felt their publication might have been protected by the First Amendment, making a successful prosecution tenuous.
2. The fresh details of special counsel Robert Mueller’s decision not to charge Assange, WikiLeaks, or Stone for their role in influencing the 2016 election come just a day before voters head to the polls for the 2020 presidential election.
3. … a new version of the 448-page Mueller report released Monday by the Justice Department contains previously redacted sections on 13 pages, nearly all of them dealing with events surrounding the hacked emails and their eventual publication.
4. The passages were disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, filed by BuzzFeed News and the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, that called on the government to release the report in its entirety. In September, a federal judge ruled that while some parts could still remain hidden, the government had violated the law by withholding portions dealing with internal discussions among prosecutors. The judge ordered the Justice Department to release relevant sections by Nov. 2.
5. … prosecutors worried they didn’t have enough hard evidence to prove that Assange or Stone actively participated in the hacks or were aware they were ongoing at the time they communicated with Guccifer 2.0. Many of the communications took place on encrypted chats that the investigators appear not to have had access to. “While the investigation developed evidence that the GRU’s hacking efforts in fact were continuing at least at the time of the July 2016 WikiLeaks dissemination,” a newly unredacted sections of the report reads, prosecutors “did not develop sufficient admissible evidence that WikiLeaks knew of — or even was willfully blind to — that fact.”
6. Likewise, prosecutors faced what they called factual hurdles in pursuing Stone for the hack. The report notes they lacked proof “beyond a reasonable doubt that Stone knew or believed that the computer intrusions were ongoing at the time he ostensibly encouraged or coordinated the publication of the Podesta emails.”
7. In addition, they worried that Stone, Assange, and WikiLeaks could all be protected under the First Amendment. “Assuming that no coordination with the Campaign occurred,” Mueller wrote, “a criminal prosecution of overseas actors providing non-express- advocacy information to American listeners would likely be difficult.”
8. The newly unveiled sections also include a small but noteworthy revelation regarding Russian attempts in August 2016 to hack a company that makes voter registration software. The name of the company, VR Systems, had been redacted until now. According to the special counsel, GRU agents had succeeded in installing malware on the company’s network. VR Systems, based in Tallahassee, Florida, has in the past denied that it was compromised.
9. … significant portions still remain redacted

Humanengr (talk) 04:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

This and its associated edit [35] looks like a badly written (WP:QUOTEFARM) pro-Stone, pro-Assange POV push. It also doesn't carry any weight, since BuzzFeed News, who filed the FOIA request, is the only outlet reporting on it in any detail. CNN just posted the unredacted report on their website without any significant commentary [36]. Geogene (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The fact that Buzzfeed filed the suit did not determine the judge's order or the respondent's compliance. Buzzfeed News is reliable per WP:RSP. What about my clips can possibly be considered POV push given the source material? CNN's lack of reporting interest is irrelevant except to someone writing a story on their reportorial competence. Humanengr (talk) 19:47, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm basing my argument on WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV. For Weight, a US-based search of Google News for "Mueller report" shows this isn't being widely reported, I see BuzzFeed and Axios, and a couple of law blogs [37]. For NPOV, if there is anything of significance here it's that Mueller considered charging Stone and Assange/WL in the first place, [38] but the edits tend to focus on why Mueller didn't. I haven't reverted, waiting to see if anyone else agrees with me on it. Geogene (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

More elaborated CNN here; also Bipartisan Report; will keep eye out for others Humanengr (talk) 01:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Re Mueller considered charging Stone and Assange/WL in the first place, … but the edits tend to focus on why Mueller didn't.: the following convey Mueller considered: did not have sufficient evidence; could not establish; did not develop sufficient admissible evidence; faced what they called factual hurdles. Humanengr (talk) 02:04, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

This strikes me as information without meaning. Incomplete and with little RS coverage to give context and significance. I suggest removing it pending more secondary discussion of these details. SPECIFICO talk 20:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 November 2020

You need to change this. This is highly misleading. People will read this 50 years from now and actually believe that Russia interfered in our election to help president trump win. How did they interfere ? Did they change votes ? Did they spread any information that wasn’t true ? No and no. 24.197.183.106 (talk) 12:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC) 24.197.183.106 (talk) 12:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Read the Muller report and you will find out, or read this article.Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

•  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Also, Russia interfered in our election to help president trump win according to our intelligence agencies. O3000 (talk) 12:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Bogus information

o Y" format. Other editors need to know what to add or remove. Blank edit requests will be declined. -->

This is invalid needs to be deleted, review released fbi and doj files as of 1/15/21

}} 2603:8000:6101:2497:21F4:BDDA:CDD3:BDEE (talk) 07:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Please be specific in what changes you want to see. — Czello 08:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Russia hoax conspiracy theory

I'm not sure that this is the best location for this discussion, but it's a good place to start. We do not have an article with the above title, but we should. The very fact that we have experienced editors who still believe it is worrying. A specific article might help that situation.

Currently "Russia hoax" is a redirect to Spygate (conspiracy theory), but I think that misses the point. The "Russia hoax" conspiracy theory is not about Spygate, but is a denial of what this article describes, which is the proven Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

The conspiracy theory has several facets involving Trumplican denials: that Russian interference happened; that the Russians were behind it; that it served to help Trump win; and that there were any improper links between the Trump campaign and Russia. All those denials are proven to be false and are part of the Russia hoax conspiracy theory. It also uses deflection in attempts to pin the blame on the Clinton campaign, Seth Rich, Christopher Steele, British intelligence, the "deep state", and Ukraine.

"Russia hoax" isn't even (primarily) a denial of the "origins" of this Russian interference investigation. That denial is covered here: Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. I don't even find an appropriate article that covers "Russia hoax" at Category:Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump or List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump.

Here are a few RS articles about it:

• Partisan Claims of ‘Russia Hoax’ Revived Ahead of 2020 Election
• Republicans incriminate Trump, decimate his 'Russia hoax' narrative
• Hard evidence at last that shreds Trump’s lies about a Russia ‘hoax’
• Donald Trump’s Statements on Putin/Russia/Fake News Media
• AP Explains: Trump slams Russia probe; Dems cry foul

I believe:

1. the redirect should point to this article until we have a proper article about the conspiracy theory.
2. Then we need an article entitled Russia hoax conspiracy theory.

What think ye? Pinging a few editors who understand what RS say about this stuff: Soibangla, MelanieN, Snooganssnoogans, Starship.paint, Muboshgu, Aquillion, SPECIFICO, Objective3000, JzG, X1\. -- Valjean (talk) 17:31, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I think there is merit to this idea. The first step would be gathering the information together into a designated subject at this article (it is currently mentioned in the lead and partially covered in the section about Putin's reaction); we would update it with information about the revival of the "hoax" claim in recent months. Then redirect to that section until an actual article is developed. The "list of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump" article does not spell out an actual description of the theories, just a link to an article or section within an article, but we could add this subject to that list once we have a section or article to point to. I'll be glad to work with you on developing that section here. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like a very logical approach. It certainly warrants a section here, and if that develops enough, we can create a logical and proper fork/sub-article. -- Valjean (talk) 23:23, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Valjean, make a draft and see what it looks like. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:43, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Where would be the most logical spot for this proposed section? -- Valjean (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I suggest a subsection in the “Donald Trump” section. There are already several paragraphs in that section where he rejects the idea that it was Russia and says the reports were “politically motivated”, blames Democrats for these “ridiculous” reports of interference, and “wonders why there was no focus on China” - we should expand that. We should also have something about the attempt to claim that it was really Ukraine who interfered, and I don't even know what-all else is in the theory. The new subsection should go above the “does Putin have something on Trump” subsection. Do you want to start this as a draft somewhere, and we can work on it and paste it in when it is ready? -- MelanieN (talk) 01:40, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Russiagate redirect

Russiagate should not redirect here. It's a separate and ongoing matter. Accusations against Russia are still being made by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Rachel Maddow, some as recently as this week. Russiagate is about this series of accusations since 2016, some true, some false, some mixed, with this topic being only one of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.0.211.90 (talk) 04:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

RFC at Julian Assange

There is an RfC at the Julian Assange article relating to whether to include his criminal history in the infobox. SPECIFICO talk 18:00, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi, I was reading through the article and overall I've found it to be well-sourced, informative, and largely impartial. However, I think the article could be further updated to reflect further developments in 2021. There are sections called 2019 developments and 2020 developments, so I think a 2021 developments section would be great. There is still discussion in 2021 about the 2016 interference like here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/us/politics/election-interference-russia-2020-assessment.html

It would help inform future readers about what's been happening recently. Thanks! Jeffrie w (talk) 01:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC of interest

There is an RfC related to Seth Rich and the Russian hacking at the Julian Assange talk page. Participation invited. SPECIFICO talk 18:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Durham probe: Alleged Clinton campaign advisor Michael Sussmann charged

Alleged Clinton campaign advisor Michael Sussmann charged with lying about who he was representing at a September 2016 meeting with a top F.B.I. lawyer.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/read-sussmann-indictment/index.html

It's amazing isn't it. One of the few people charged for Russian Collusion and it was someone helping the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now the Russian Source for the now debunked Steele Dossier has been arrested. Yet where is the information? This surely should be in the lede? 118.208.2.228 (talk) 05:51, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019) resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial. That includes Paul Manafort, who managed Trump's campaign for a time. Remember this is WP:NOTAFORUM. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The information is provided in the appropriate article, namely John Durham. It is not relevant to this article. soibangla (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The lede on this article, "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election" is a stretch from reality specially when the fact is 1. That allegation is currently being investigated and an indictment was issued on Nov. 3, 2021. 2. The source of the allegation has been reported to be a fabrication and potentially politically motivated by Russian self proclaimed Hillary Clinton supporters to damage the 2016 Donald J. Trump campaign. 24.106.92.10 (talk) 22:37, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Neither the charges against Sussmann nor Danchenko change the conclusion of U.S. intelligence cited in that first paragraph. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:54, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election" is not the subject of the Durham investigation. The subject is whether the "deep state" set up Trump. Of course the Clinton campaign did opposition research on Trump, it's SOP in every campaign. Did they ever use the dossier against Trump? Ever mention the peetape? Nope. Because they couldn't verify it. Gotta wonder if Trump's guys like Rudy and Bannon would've held back like that. John Durham#Special counsel to review origins of Trump-Russia investigation soibangla (talk) 23:09, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Sussmann is not "charged for Russian collusion." Somehow people who believe The Former Guy think that slightly moving a remote, barely tangentially related, piece of the puzzle automatically means the Russians didn't interfere or that the Trump campaign didn't have myriad illicit links with Russians they kept secret and lied about. Well, it happened and they did. -- Valjean (talk) 23:29, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

References

Please update since out-of-date

At Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#2019_developments it would appear that Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (January–June 2019) and Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (July–December 2019); instead of Further information: Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2019–2020), currently that incorrect date goes to the generic Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.85.196.178 (talk) 20:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Plus there should be more articles on something like "There were goals of harming the campaign of Donald Trump and boosting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton" because that's a fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:6011:9600:52C0:141A:F590:5B46:E677 (talk) 19:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello. Your request for updates is somewhat difficult to understand. Please be more specific. Your second request shows that you may be new to Wikipedia. New articles require WP:DUE and WP:RS. Please also see WP:POLICYLIST. DN (talk) 23:34, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello. First of all, I'm not the first person, just to clarify. Secondly, I'm (surely) not new to Wikipedia. Thirdly, there's still no explanation to why there isn't much coverage to times there was goals and incidences to harm Trump's campaign and boot Hillary's. I can be confident in that fact, I'm not promoting any politics - just attempting to improve Wikipedia ^^. Here are some sources: https://shrib.com/#Skyler6myqELa (although I'm sure someone will say something like "fake news" or "no evidence", despite many of the listed sites are generally reliable by Wikipedia's standards so it's important to mention there's at least an investigation. To point out, the Durham part of the election saga is very active news now so anything could come up). Despite what actually happened, it's just fair to point out that picking up dirt on your opponent and trying to boost your own side is nothing new and what everyone does (some more than others, although ik what this article describes, the other side isn't exactly innocent). I know what many responses to this can be but make no mistake and please be impartial (to reassure you, I'm not doing a forum or defending someone). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:6011:9600:52C0:141A:F590:5B46:E677 (talk) 13:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Why was it archived?

Durham investigation

The Mueller and Durham investigations have proven that there was no collusion between Donald Trump's election and Russia. This was proven to be a coordination between the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign in order to try to defeat Trump. Further, the Durham investigation has provided evidence of the DNC and Clinton campaign of spying on Trump during the election cycle and also while Trump was a sitting POTUS. 69.138.13.103 (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

No, no, and...um...no. soibangla (talk) 23:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 November 2021

Please update to reflect that in 11/04/2021 a sub-source fir the Steele dossier was arrested for lying to the FBI in connection to the dossier .

https://apnews.com/article/europe-russia-arrests-john-durham-9d2344081036235309346ad95b14a8bc

Also please include that Attorney Michael Sussman was also indicted on charges of lying to the FBI in connection to the Steele dossier and his connection to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/special-counsel-appointed-trump-doj-may-indict-democratic-lawyer-sussmann-n1279353 2601:14A:601:6130:9805:A36A:7E33:6198 (talk) 12:03, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:08, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Criticism - Russia Spending on Social Media Untargeted

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-how-much-money-russians-spent-twitter-facebook-ads-20170928-htmlstory.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/facebook-says-it-sold-political-ads-to-russian-company-during-2016-election/2017/09/06/32f01fd2-931e-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.47b0cbbe804f

$200,000 - $300,000 grand across a range of issues.

One Hundred Grand cannot move the political needle of 100M+ voters on facebook and the execution of the campaign was pointed at diffrent sources. The dossier gave creditability to overstatement of russian involvement. The not tagging Carter Page as a trusted CIA assett was a DOJ "mistake" in the most liberal of terms. Now the dossier is unverifiable, and for factual reason, the FBI investigation and finding of Mueller are suspect becasue they could not zero out the with the believers of dossier in the middle of a media firestorm.

In a few months we will entering "FBI/DOJ failures of the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections Probe". The FBI spreadsheet full of dry investigation points as reported by the house committee in 2018, that was ignored by the media and the House Impeachment Committee will be a very important point, I dont see it here.

Upon review of https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download

The bombshells are paper and spit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude (talk • contribs) 15:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

All I see in what you wrote is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The dossier did not start the investigation. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Are you still confident I have a WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. problem. With some reading of sources published in 2017 you would have confirmation of that from people of both parties and the press.

"

At the convention, Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan drove a golf cart from one TV-network news tent in the parking lot to another, pitching producers, anchors, correspondents and even some NBC network executives a story that Trump and his advisers were in bed with Putin and possibly conspiring with Russian intelligence to steal the election. He also visited CNN and MSNBC, as well as Fox News, to spin the Clinton campaign’s unfounded theories. Sullivan even sat down with CNN honcho Jeff Zucker to outline the opposition research they had gathered on Trump and Russia.

Sullivan maintained in congressional testimony in December 2017 that he didn’t know of Fusion’s involvement in the Alfa Bank opposition research. In the same closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, he also denied knowing anything about Fusion in 2016 or who was conducting the opposition research for the campaign. "

The convention predates the official finding that starts a FBI investigation.

Factcheck is not a valid source.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/09/23/biden_security_adviser_sullivan_tied_to_16_clinton_plan_to_co-opt_cia_and_fbi_to_tar_trump_795498.html Loopbackdude (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

RealClearPolitics is not quite a dependable source either in this case. I would stick to RS material and avoid "opinion pieces" like the one you shared, as this is not a forum for discussing original research. DN (talk) 07:53, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Feb 14 Update .... Still have the same position? Loopbackdude (talk) 07:16, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

2016 Russian collusion

So your telling me that fake Facebook accounts from Russia made the American public change their vote to Trump?? That would only make sense if the average American IQ was like 50, I don’t know anybody who gets their political information from Facebook, Everyone knows that Facebook is full of Fake misinformation and if you don’t know that you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, with or without Identification. What a stupid thing to waste everyone’s time and money talking about, just go watch CNN and get your fake misinformation from them, they’re allowed to do it. 2600:387:B:9A2:0:0:0:60 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

See WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:ORIGINAL. DN (talk) 00:57, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

The lead is TLDR

Per WP:MOSLEAD: The lead is "a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." Let's fix this. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:56, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Any suggestions of what to cut? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:16, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

The first paragraph looks ok as a summary. After that, I would like to cut the rest down by looking at the sections we already have, and putting in ONE sentence that sums up each section. This has the benefit of giving an organized introduction to the article itself. I will copy and paste here all the paragraphs I cut in order to do this, so that others can work on putting useful material from them INTO THE RELEVANT SECTIONS, not back into the lead. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:32, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Please mark changes with strikes and additions indicated in text formatting. SPECIFICO talk 19:05, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd rather work on an article where I have more to offer, but if anybody reading this agrees the Lead needs work, please think about making it shorter and more useful. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Update to a wikilink

The wikilink to “Russia–United States relations § Obama’s tenure (2009–2017)” should be changed to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–United_States_relations#Obama_administration_(2009–2017) as the section’s name on the other article changed from “tenure” to “administration”. --Bischnu (talk) 09:34, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 26 March 2022

Why does this page still exist when it's been proven to be false? 2600:1700:1AC8:9810:E918:C280:3A04:A117 (talk) 02:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 02:52, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe because it hasn't been proven false, kind of like the Earth hasn't been proven to be flat...DN (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

It has though, it was disinfo pushed the Clinton campaign after losing the 2016 election. Love how you make a disingenuous argument comparing this to flat earthers though, really unbiased. Jmajchrz (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:07, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Youtube? please read wp:rs. Slatersteven (talk) 17:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

"It has though" is not going to cut it, friend. See WP:OR. We all have bias, it's just that here on Wikipedia, we are required to back up our "bias" with proven facts and references that come from reliable sources. "Breaking Points" consists mainly of blog-ish editorialized opinion pieces, Infotainment podcasts etc. that require almost no accountability and are almost pure WP:POV, like Tucker Carlson Tonight. Then there's the likes of Substack which has been criticized for allowing content which could actually be dangerous to public health. Estimates are that it earned $2.5 million per year from the top five WP:FRINGE anti-vax authors alone [39] (Thanks Glenn Greenwald!!) Anyway, if you want to contribute to Wiki in a productive way, great! More power to you, but maybe learn the ropes before attempting the high wire, see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Best of luck. DN (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

References

Opinion polls

I don't believe that the opinion polls just added [40], and the related commentary that Trump's conspiracy theories about the 2020 election are rooted in Democrats' behavior, has WP:WEIGHT. What do people think? Geogene (talk) 19:43, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

And I'll add that it's sourced mostly to opinion pieces in The Week and Washington Examiner, and primary sources. Geogene (talk) 19:51, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

NRA section is incomplete, incorrect title

The article starts with an FBI investigation of "possible funneling of illegal money" from Russia through the NRA to the Trump campaign, and then the article forgets about it. The investigation did in fact conclude with the arrest of Butina (and later plea deal) as noted in the last paragraph, but the article omits that this was the conclusion of the investigation mentioned in the beginning.

The article does not give any information on the resolution of the issue of illegal money that it sets up in the title and first paragraph. The article should include that the investigation concluded with no evidence of any "funneling of illegal money" found.

With this, the title should be changed "Allegations of money funneled through the NRA" since they are only allegations, not confirmed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by QuilaBird (talk • contribs) 16:13, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Make one on the Durham report

Full of lies 98.97.7.195 (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

2016 Election leaks merger discussion

I thought editors of this article would like to know that there is a proposal and discussion to merge 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak and Podesta emails into Draft:2016 Election leaks because they overlapped in timing intent perpetrators and investigations. It also has information about Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks, and the investigations into them and the leaks. The idea is the leaks were a deliberate series of events meant to interfere with the election and the different names and descriptions were meant to obfuscate or whatever you call it when spies do it

Im not gonna canvass everywhere, but this page is already specialized and the connections obvious so I wanted to let people here know Softlemonades (talk) 19:17, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Thought Id let everyone know that Draft:2016_Election_leaks is ready. Its mostly a combination of the different pages, with some things moved around so the investigation information is all together. I did add from Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks to give a better picture and used the template to link to them.

So far there hasnt been anyy discussion except that I rewrote too much. I pointed out that it was mostly copy and paste, with rewrites just for combining things and adding context and sources. Its mostly the original articles, just better organized. I asked for examples and they didnt respond.

Welcome any discussion on the talk page. Thought I shuold let everyone know the draft was ready at least. Talk:2016 Democratic National Committee email leak#Proposed merge: 2016 Election leaks Softlemonades (talk) 16:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Russiagate should not redirect to this page

Russiagate is the collection of disinformation and conspiracy theories largely promoted by liberals and democrats to demonize Russia. Examples include the discredited Steele dossier, two-thirds of democrats falsely believing that Russia tampered with vote tallies in 2016, and the Clinton campaign fabricating a connection between Trump and the Russian bank Alfa.

This deserves to be its own topic, but I suspect political bias here on Wikipedia is standing in the way of objectivity. 68.239.21.166 (talk) 14:48, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I suepect you need to read wp:npa and wp:soap. As well as wp:rs. wp:v and wp:or. Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

IP68, if there were any merit to your beliefs, then we could certainly create "Russiagate" conspiracy theory that denies the proven interference by Russia, the myriad improper and illegal secretive contacts between Trump's people and proven Russian intelligence agents, and the open cooperation between Trump and his campaign with Russia's efforts to denigrate Clinton, put Trump in power, and disrupt American elections and society. Sure, we have the building blocks and reliable sources to easily create such an article, but until then, this is the best target for the redirect.

The use of the term "Russiagate" (usually in a derogatory manner) is nearly always a red flag signaling we're dealing with POV from the Trump cult misinformation bubble. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:52, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes. This was a routine occurance in 2016-2018. While the editors who advocated the use of that term denied it, the consensus was that it insinuated a POV that is contrary to the content of this page. SPECIFICO talk 17:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I can see a valid reason to have an article discussing just that, Russiagate as a conspiracy theory. Slatersteven (talk) 17:30, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Using the term "trump cult" really doesn't make it sound like you're arguing from a neutral point of view either. Maybe you shouldn't be editing Wikipedia. Jmajchrz (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't confuse discussion for editing. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

That is objectively untrue. The left has been speaking out against Russiagate since day one. By redirecting to this page that discusses actual Russian interference, it is implying that the myriad of conspiracy theories are true. Wikipedia should be objective and not push a minority view within one party. 66% of registered Democrats when polled said "it’s important prosecutors investigate Clinton for her role in the Russiagate scandal." 72.86.204.197 (talk) 14:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

https://nypost.com/2022/02/13/most-democrats-want-hillary-clinton-investigated-for-any-role-in-russiagate-scandal-poll/ 72.86.204.197 (talk) 15:20, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 15:28, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sourcing the NY Post, I'm talking about the scientific poll they are referencing. A separate Russiagate page could encompass all Russiagate conspiracies (Donald Trump colluded with Russia, Russian Dossier, John Trump-Nikola Tesla connection and related Russian time-travel conspiracies, Russian plans to freeze Americans to death, etc.). It is not your job to push conspiracies, especially something like this in which both the left and right agree. 72.86.204.197 (talk) 15:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

You're sourcing NY Post. Do any WP:RS cover that poll? All I see is Daily Caller, the Moonie Times, WP:DAILYMAIL, and other unreliable outlets. There is likely a reason that RS aren't running this poll by a firm called "TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics". – Muboshgu (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

On that subject "TIPP does polls available only to IBD, which produces deeply biased reports based on TIPP surveys with no direct or full link to that surveyor's questions or methods of acquiring its samples. Their practices and results are of doubtful value, to say the least. Nate Silver reviews a notorious recent IBD/TIPP polls of doctors thusly: "that special pollster which is both biased and inept.." (Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right at ibdtipp-doctors-poll-is-not-trustworthy,". Slatersteven (talk) 15:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

two-thirds of democrats falsely believing that Russia tampered with vote tallies in 2016 Say what now? It is known that Russia tried to access American election systems [41][42] (Even DeSantis says so) but never before have I heard the insinuation that that many people believe that Russia changed votes. That's probably because it never happened. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:41, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Extremely vague reports that prove nothing, but insinuates that the Russians had access to public voting data. But so could anyone, hence the word public. Only an incompetent fool would leave ob vies trace data behind linking the traffic to Russia. We know through Vault 7 that the NSA and the CIA can impersonate any country or entity, so again. Proves absolutely nothing! No technical evidenced given and no motive given that actually makes sense! It makes sense in order to discredit Trump, but makes no sense when looking at Trump's actual policies or anything he did when he was president. The fact that he was impeached by a phone call to Ukraine in which no illegal activity took place. But still resembles a phone call Biden did to the former president of Ukraine where he blackmailed him into firing the prosecutor investigating his son. Biden even bragged about it! Making it seem like exposing a crime like Trump was probing into without any ultimatums is what actually is considered criminal activity. MarSwe11 (talk) 23:15, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

It has always been the assumption that our intelligence agencies did not find proof that the Russians actually changed votes, even though the propaganda efforts doubtless caused millions more to vote for Trump, as all the Russian social media efforts were directed toward in direction, as well as the efforts of the Mercers, Cambridge Analytica, Facebook Twitter, etc. Marketing works. To deny that those efforts caused many to vote for Trump would be to say that advertising and marketing have no effect, and such a belief is patent nonsense. The social media companies worked directly with GOP operatives and shared their data with Cambridge Analytica.

But no actual votes were "changed". The Russians penetrated over half of the state electoral systems, in some cases getting within reach of changing votes if they so wished, but again, we have no proof they did, nor have I ever heard that Democrats believe such a thing. If the Russians did it, then Trump would have gotten more votes, but of course the sneakiest way to do it is to give Hillary the popular vote win and Trump the electoral vote win. Oh! That's what happened! This all begs the questions: What were they doing, if not preparing for future actions? Will we even know if they do change votes in the future? We do need to get back to ONLY paper ballots and snail mail. Analog does have security advantages. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:13, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

People being swayed is very different from vote tampering. Wikipedia should be objective, not a place for you to spread political propaganda and suggestions on changing our voting system, though I do agree on that part. 72.86.204.197 (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

It is, we reflect what RS say. Slatersteven (talk) 15:20, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

"If the Russians did it, then Trump would have gotten more votes, but of course the sneakiest way to do it is to give Hillary the popular vote win and Trump the electoral vote win. Oh! That's what happened! This all begs the questions: What were they doing, if not preparing for future actions? Will we even know if they do change votes in the future? We do need to get back to ONLY paper ballots and snail mail."

Sorry, Valjean, but that sort of loose speculation is scarily reminiscent of Sidney Powell's comments on voting machines and the 2020 election. Sure, U.S. presidential elections are disorganized and at times slightly chaotic, but they are generally secure, and virtually impossible for any one entity to systematically "rig" due to their decentralized nature (after all, we're really talking about 50 state elections each conducted according to their own rules/procedures). Furthermore, it is actually not unheard of for the electoral college outcome to differ from the raw "popular vote" in the U.S. political system (the Republican president who preceded Trump was elected in this very same manner).

I'm not certain what specific actions by Facebook or Twitter you are referring to as favoring the Trump campaign in 2016. That said, in regards to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, PolitiFact notes that "[t]he Obama campaign and Cambridge Analytica both gained access to huge amounts of information about Facebook users and their friends, and in neither case did the friends of app users consent," though "in Obama's case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign." According to Tufts University professor Eitan Hersh, there is little empirical evidence that the "microtargeting" used by these campaigns was "greatly effective at persuading people to vote." In any case, equating social media algorithms with electoral fraud is potentially dangerous rhetoric; after all, that is exactly what #StoptheSteal types said about Facebook/Twitter "reducing the visibility" of the Hunter Biden laptop controversy in 2020. TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:57, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Intelligence analysis and reports

We currently say In part because U.S. agencies cannot surveil U.S. citizens without a warrant, the U.S. was slow to recognize the pattern of Russia's efforts.. I believe the "the U.S. was slow" wording may violate MOS:IDENTITY, which recommend using specific terminology (e.g. did ALL of the United States inhabitants were slow to recognize?) and may be against rules of avoiding Anthropomorphism. Forich (talk) 08:26, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Good catch. Now fixed: "In part because U.S. intelligence agencies cannot surveil U.S. citizens without a warrant, they were slow to recognize the pattern of Russia's efforts." -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:55, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

2023 Nature Communications paper

I found and went through an open-access paper (from Nature Communications) that goes over Russian on Americans during the 2016 election via Twitter, and which concludes (among other things) that, though the Russian government did use Twitter in an attempt to influence American voters, there was no evidence that it succeeded in changing voting behavior, polarization, or attitudes among those who were targeted. As well, it indicated that just 1% of users received 70% of all exposure, that 10% of users received 98% of exposure, and that users who identified as being Republicans experienced concentrated exposure to said messages (with ones who were strongly Republican receiving the greatest exposure to Russian government influence).

However, they also stated that the study only looked at Russian government attempts to influence Americans via Twitter (and on an individual level), that it could not say anything about how the Russian government could have used other social media sites for this purpose, or how it or other governments could (or could have) influenced Americans by means of other channels or methods, or how it did not look at how the Russian government could have used this intervention to trigger a reaction among Americans (including both questioning President Trump's legitimacy and sowing doubt about the U.S. election system).

So, should this paper be incorporated in this entry? Mateo Tembo (talk) 01:20, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Why are you leaving out the best part?

Finally, while our evidence points to the absence of a relationship between exposure to social media posts from Russian foreign influence accounts and individual-level outcomes, foreign influence campaigns may also succeed through second-order effects: those effects that are achieved by provoking a domestic reaction to the intervention itself33. Indeed, debate about the 2016 US election continues to raise questions about the legitimacy of the Trump presidency and to engender mistrust in the electoral system, which in turn may be related to American’s willingness to accept claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Such beliefs appear to stem in large part from speculation that Russian interference—whether on social media or through other channels—influenced the election outcome34,35,36. In a word, Russia’s foreign influence campaign on social media may have had its largest effects by convincing Americans that its campaign was successful37. Our results thus provide a corrective to the view that the foreign influence campaign and those like it can easily manipulate the attitudes and voting behavior of ordinary social media users. Foreign actors may nevertheless adapt their behavior on social media to have meaningful effects, and political contexts may become more conducive to foreign influence campaigns. This warrants that our results be taken with caution when assessing future foreign influence campaigns on social media.

Which by the way also have been sourced in reliable secondary sources before anyone screams original researh. But who the fuck even pays the slightest credit to Wikipedia these days. No evidence of any effect has been proven other than likely boosting the campaign of Democrats. It was likely a conspiracy from the beginning. Mind https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wikipedia . Wikipedia even works together with FBI despite falsely claiming being based upon "open collaboration" https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1606701487601901568/photo/1. 213.237.80.141 (talk) 04:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I left that quote (and others) out because, in the interest of both time and length, I chose to summarize it and to leave out direct quotes from it in the post that I made. That's not to say that there weren't some good quotes, such as what you posted, or other parts of the "Discussion" section, or things written in the "Introduction," among other areas. Indeed, if the community running this entry (or an editor qualified to edit it, or its administrator) decided to write about this paper in this particular article and wanted to include quotes from it, at least part of the one you included in your post's second sentence would be as good as any for it.

Then again, this article is under extended confirmed protection. And, given how that status limits editing privileges to editors who have been on Wikipedia for at least 30 days and who have also made at least 500 edits, neither you nor I can add that or otherwise edit this entry. Instead, it is up to an editor who fulfills both criteria to decide what (if anything) to add from it. Mateo Tembo (talk) 06:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Probably worth adding this paper in some respect but it does rather leave out a lot since it leaves out Twitter, and the IRA used Facebook and Twitter were used, but also Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Medium, YouTube, Vine, and Google+ (among other sites). Instagram was by far the most used platform. In particular Facebook and Instagram. The single greatest effect came from the Comey letter according to 538. Still, this paper with a worthwhile counterpoint. The IP editor's sources are of course, not reliable. Andre🚐 06:14, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Article Length

The length of this article is completely absurd. The entry on World War II is actually shorter. Likely the combination of recency bias and editors overzealous on the subject matter. Regardless it needs to be scaled way back to read more like an actual encyclopedia entry. Zaqwert (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Problematic paragraph in the lead

First of all, I am a newbie to wikipedia editing so please let me know if I inadvertently mess anything up while editing.

The lead contains the following paragraph and I believe there are two significant issues with it's placement: "In January 2023, a study from New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics of the 2016 election found "no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior."

The study referenced investigates how exposure to Russian propaganda on twitter influences a sample of ~1400 Americans. They did this by extracting every tweet from these volunteer's timelines, and identifying how many tweets came from propaganda accounts. They relied on a list of ~50,000 accounts which Twitter themselves identified as propaganda accounts. We of course know that Russia also utilized youtube, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, paid google ads, and a variety of other sources. This study only covers the effects of Twitter, which is a fraction of the Russian overall social media influence. On top of that, relying on Twitter for the bot accounts is a weak point of this article by the authors own admission.

The 2nd major problem is that this is a study of ONLY Twitter campaigns. Twitter represents only a tiny piece of Russia's actions. The broad scope of Russia's interference was not limited to just social media. The DNC hacks, the E-mail leaks, wikileaks, and the cooperation of some politicians all played a part in the overall broad interference.

The point that im trying to make is that the paragraph in this context suggests to the reader that russian interference ultimately had little effect. In actuality, the study only makes conclusions about what effect the known twitter bots had. Using this to make a sweeping conclusion about the greater scope of Russia's interference is very misleading.

This paragraph's current placement clearly suggests to the reader exactly that conclusion. My opinion is that it be better removed. The study itself is fine - but I believe the authors didn't intend to make such a broad conclusion.

This is obviously a very important article, and this error in the lead motivated me to make my first lengthy contribution. Thanks everyone. Aalswais (talk) 01:09, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Unless the bot list has been publicly vetted at this point nobody believes any cartelization of bot accounts. Twitters internal documents released in the twitter files indicates that they were the only ones who creditably investigated the behavioral aspects of bots, like being living people. Since several of the twitter Russians bots have given on screen interviews, been vetted as normal citizens, in the past week, any past BOT or BOT Farm claims by any organization other than the socials where they out and ban the bots, cannot be given any credence until the media does their job.

Wikipedia will be cleaning up claims of bot interference in everthign from poltics to dog shows a rapid manner......yeah. 2601:248:C000:3F:2033:613D:AF5C:9A27 (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

You'll need to provide a reliable source for this. Andre🚐 23:28, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Relevant discussion

Theres a discussion relevant to this page proposing merging 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak and Podesta emails to 2016 US election leaks which describes the series of events more completely and in more detail and with more context Softlemonades (talk) 20:30, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Based on What is Now Known, How Much of This Article is Now Even True?

Since the Trump-Russia collusion hoax has now been rather thoroughly debunked and discredited, shouldn't somebody go through this article again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.27.38 (talk) 01:43, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Why? What has been "debunked and discredited"? What has changed that we haven't already documented?

You need to understand the Trump–Russia crime scene. Ask the following question and focus on the second part, because the first is proven:

Russia interfered in the 2016 election, but what role did Trump and his campaign play in that interference? That's what the Crossfire Hurricane team and Mueller wanted to understand.

We know that Mueller was not able to prove "conspiracy" and "coordination" beyond a shadow of a doubt, possibly because of all the obstruction, destruction of evidence, and secret communication using burner phones and other devices that leave no trace. Mueller did prove that such devious means of communication were used.

Here is something incredible we also know. Mueller definitely "did not make a 'traditional prosecutorial judgment' on whether Trump broke the law."

Conspiracy is a crime that is very hard to prove. A crime itself may be easy to prove, but to prove that the participants actually conspired to commit the crime, one must pass a very high bar of evidence. Finding a formal written or oral agreement of "you do this and I'll do that" to commit the crime is often impossible, and it may never have existed as a formal agreement, even though the participants planned their actions.

The report also detailed multiple acts of potential obstruction of justice by Trump, but did not make a "traditional prosecutorial judgment" on whether Trump broke the law, suggesting that Congress should make such a determination. Investigators decided they could not "apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes" as an Office of Legal Counsel opinion stated that a sitting president could not be indicted, and investigators would not accuse him of a crime when he cannot clear his name in court. The report concluded that Congress, having the authority to take action against a president for wrongdoing, "may apply the obstruction laws". The House of Representatives subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry following the Trump–Ukraine scandal, but did not pursue an article of impeachment related to the Mueller investigation.

Did you notice these words? "Investigators decided they could not "apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes." IOW, they already decided from the start that investigators were NOT allowed to find Trump guilty of a crime, so they focused on a crime that is nearly impossible to prove, and they succeeded in their goal of NOT proving such a crime.

If any crime was committed, the participants were allowed to go free because it was not proven they "conspired" to commit the crime. I don't know of any court of law that operates this way. Bank robbers do get convicted, as the crime itself is the important thing, not whether they "conspired" to rob the bank. In spite of this, many were indeed prosecuted and convicted. Then Trump pardoned many of them.

Mueller definitely "did not make a 'traditional prosecutorial judgment' on whether Trump broke the law." He chose to attempt to prove the unprovable (conspiracy) and succeeded in not proving it. Job well done.

Apologists for Russia and so-called "Russiagate" revisionists forget about the collusion and unpatriotic acts by Trump and his campaign and go so far as to deny Russian interference. That is factually and patriotically wrong.

So what's the problem? Conspiracy was not proven, but Mueller had chosen not to focus on all the collusion he found in the process of the investigation. They found plenty of that, but most of it was not a crime, just terribly unpatriotic. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:49, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

yes have a look at how encyclopedia britannica present the issue. an encyclopedia should be unbiased. (but I'm not sure what wikipedia is.) 122.148.90.232 (talk) 04:20, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

In what way is the article biased? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:35, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Trump-Russia collusion was a fact, and was not debunked or discredited. Andre🚐 18:23, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Correct. It was only "conspiracy" and "coordination" that were unproven, and definitely not disproven. There were myriad forms of collusion, using other terms, that were uncovered. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:24, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Your entire reply proves your biased view, and this Russia conspiracy is stil just a political mud slinging hit job.

"We know that Mueller was not able to prove "conspiracy" and "coordination..Here is something incredible we also know. Mueller definitely "did not make a 'traditional prosecutorial judgment' on whether Trump broke the law."

Conspiracy is a crime that is very hard to prove. A crime itself may be easy to prove, but to prove that the participants actually conspired to commit the crime, one must pass a very high bar of evidence. Finding a formal written or oral agreement of "you do this and I'll do that" to commit the crime is often impossible, and it may never have existed ... Trump is just unpatriotic. What? 2001:8003:2514:F700:B901:9132:AE46:725D (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections occurred whether or not it was criminal. And Mueller did achieve convictions. He just didn't charge Trump himself or the people closest to Trump. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:23, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

There's no biased view. These are facts. Don't come here to WP:RGW and make personal attacks. Andre🚐 17:05, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

The original claim above has not been supported, so I ask again: What has been "debunked and discredited"? What has changed that we haven't already documented? (Unfortunately, we cannot ping IP editors, which is another reason for registering a user name.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:28, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Crazy absence of citations.

Seems like the second and third paragraphs have none at all. 50.93.19.86 (talk) 22:30, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

That's because it's the WP:LEAD. Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. MOS:LEADCITE. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:35, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Given the contentious nature of the subject, we should err on the side of including more citations. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

It can't hurt. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Which will mean a lot of work for some poor sod to move them from the body to the lead, and then cite them in the body again. Slatersteven (talk) 14:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

It's not that hard. I'll volunteer to be that "poor sod" to see if there's anything contentious in those two paragraphs and locate their citations in the body. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the third paragraph needs to be written some, but everything that could need a citation has MOS:CONTEXTLINK like the Internet Research Agency and the troll farm description. Agree it cant hurt but it looks ok.

The third paragraph just needs to say what the Senate investigation said and maybe the [citation needed] tag but I dont think that needs a citation

If you do add citations, thanks for being that poor sod Softlemonades (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Reality Winner Document

"Russia military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report ... dated May 5, 2017, the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light."

Could someone please add the document in question to the fourth paragraph of the "Intrusions into state voter-registration systems" subsection? Sandizer (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done Actualcpscm (talk) 10:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Electoral fraud category

Does this article fit electoral fraud? I have heard that Russians did not interfere with votes themselves, although I could be wrong. GoutComplex (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

NO, as (as far as I know) not actual proof of fraud has been shown. Slatersteven (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Dubious Sources for Claim That Putin Was Personally Responsible for Hacks

The article clearly states that according to the U.S. intelligence community, Putin was "directly responsible" for the hacks, but the sources listed don't say that. They quote a joint report where they said that he "could" be responsible. Seems to me to be very inaccurate. 99.46.100.178 (talk) 03:57, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

JUs tone of the sources "“The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak". Slatersteven (talk) 12:13, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 May 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-faulted-for-its-probe-of-russian-meddling-in-2016-campaign-32287018?mod=hp_lead_pos6

“We conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law,”

He said the bureau swiftly pursued a vague tip about potential contacts between a Trump campaign aide and Russia authorities in July 2016, even though, the report says, the bureau had no other information in its files to corroborate any such contact.

He concluded the FBI was more cautious and skeptical of allegations of foreign influence on the Clinton campaign than on the Trump campaign in 2016. According to the report, the bureau didn’t aggressively pursue evidence of two instances in which foreign governments were potentially planning to contribute to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to gain influence. The speed with which the FBI opened the investigation into the Trump campaign “based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached” those other allegations, it said. The FBI provided briefings to the Clinton campaign, the report said, an approach it said stood in contrast to the lack of such briefings provided to the Trump campaign.

He concluded that the FBI didn’t rigorously analyze information it received, especially from people and groups with political affiliation, prolonging the investigation and prompting the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr. Durham said the FBI was overly reliant on investigative leads from Mr. Trump’s political opponents. Strakajagr (talk) 14:11, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

You want us to add this? Slatersteven (talk) 14:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Strakajagr, that's far too much and too vague information to add as is. Be more specific. Also, identify exactly where in this article you think this should be added. Context means a lot. Keep in mind that Durham's conclusions change nothing about the findings of myriad secretive contacts with actual Russian agents and how the Trump campaign invited, welcomed, cooperated, aided and abetted, lied about, facilitated, encouraged, did not prevent interference, and tried to prevent U.S. intelligence from doing its job because Trump "expected to benefit" from Russian interference. Durham focused on two things that had little effect on the evidence for Russian election interference and how Trump benefited from Putin putting him in power. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:28, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. -Lemonaka‎ 08:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Quoiting Durham Investigation Wikipedia, It seems both Clinton and Trump context for investigation were driven by FBI/DOJ political motive, FBI being snoopy in Politics and Beltway Next Administration Toady Credits. {sic}

Durham said the FBI was more deferential to Clinton than to Trump by opening a preliminary, rather than a full, investigation into Clinton. This 2016 preliminary investigation was opened based on information from the book Clinton Cash, written by Peter Schweizer, a senior editor of the far-right media organization Breitbart News. The book made allegations that foreign powers were attempting to buy influence with Clinton. The FBI gave her a "defensive briefing" to alert her of such threats. Durham said the Trump full investigation was opened on the basis of "unvetted hearsay," which was in the form of an alert from Alexander Downer, a high-ranking Australian diplomat. Durham wrote Trump had not been given a defensive briefing before Crossfire Hurricane was opened, though he was briefed in late-July or August 2016, soon after winning the Republican nomination. By September 2020, Durham had broadened the scope of his investigation to include an examination of how the FBI investigated matters involving Clinton, such as the Clinton Foundation, the Uranium One controversy and her email controversy. In January 2020 a US attorney appointed by attorney general Jeff Sessions, at the urging of Trump and congressional Republicans, quietly concluded a two-year examination of the matters, having found nothing warranting further investigation. 2601:248:C000:3F:CC18:1066:960B:887A (talk) 22:41, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Lead is way too long

Cut it in half. Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:10, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree. ℛonherry☘ 05:53, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Was proved to be Disinformation long ago

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I need a administrator to edit this page with either removal or a big Citation at the top stating that it was a theory. Then briefly below stating was admitted to being made up by the Hillary Clinton camp. If you need me to provide links just ask but I'm sure you all know about it by now. I'm just glad I noticed it because this false information has been around a while as debunked. Thank you and have a great day John Scagleone (talk) 10:57, 16 June 2023 (UTC) Yes, please provide links that say this was "made up by the Hillary Clinton camp", as other sources pretty conclusively state that there was interference. — Czello (music) 11:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC) I know how much you all like this site. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-20/clinton-approved-trump-russia-leak-her-campaign-manager-says John Scagleone (talk) 11:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC) That article talks about one specific thing, computer servers at Donald Trump’s company had a secret communications link with a Russian bank. It does not say there was no interference at all. — Czello (music) 11:13, 16 June 2023 (UTC) I I just don't see any actual info to back this up except "people think". no evidence shows he did anything wrong so until there is some please change the topic to "opinion" or "thUnless you have some information or a conviction I missed, ory". Please I don't want to get intomentguement about this. John Scagleone (talk) 11:21, 16 June 2023 (UTC) https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-dossier-fusion-gps/index.html John Scagleone (talk) 11:10, 16 June 2023 (UTC) The article already reflects what this news story says. — Czello (music) 11:21, 16 June 2023 (UTC) So no criminal conviction or proof of anything relating to this subject exists yet it is listed under a former Presidents name as if it's clear as day facts. Come on man it's basic common sense at this point that is like saying people are guilty because they have been accused of something. Even though Clintons party kinda ratted her out and everybody just moved on with their lives. Also my apologies about the spelling errors in the last post. John Scagleone (talk) 11:28, 16 June 2023 (UTC) This subject exists because Russia did interfere in the election. Whether Trump was guilty of direct collusion with the Kremlin is a separate issue. If there are any specific sentences you think are wrong, please list them. — Czello (music) 11:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC) Is this not being discused in the above thread? Slatersteven (talk) 12:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Disinformation

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I know that this is an encyclopedia - not a court, but encyclopedia has to be based on facts - not on speculations. The sentence "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States." might be a disinformation. This claim has to be first proved (as in court) with 1) proving both that there was an interference and 2) that if it was one that its goals were as stated in this sentence. Unless it is proven - this should be clearly presented as a hypothesis - not as a fact. Since it is really not proven, please correct the wording in the beginning of the article. Andra1ex (talk) 12:08, 15 June 2023 (UTC) No it has to be sourced to people who say they have proven it who are wp:rs. Slatersteven (talk) 12:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC) Could you please help me to understand it better? Does it mean that there are people who are considered "wikipedia reliable sources", and if these people say that some information has been proven by them then it is enough to publish this information? Andra1ex (talk) 12:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC) Reliable sources are not people but outlets. We write whatever the reliable sources say. see WP:RSP. It is not misinformation and will not be removed. Andre🚐 12:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC) "We write whatever the reliable sources say" - it completely undermines the credibility. Previously I used only math/CS articles from Wikipedia, and they are pretty good, but yesterday I looked at political articles and they are awful: biased, incorrect, rumors, gossips. I hope it will change, but for now I will recommend everyone to stay away from Wikipedia articles (except of math/CS). Andra1ex (talk) 14:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC) Nope. WP:RGW Andre🚐 14:30, 15 June 2023 (UTC) RS are sources (yes they maybe people, or organizations) that have a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking, and thus can be considered reliable for what they say. Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 15 June 2023 (UTC) "have a reputation... and thus can be considered reliable" - it completely undermines the credibility. Previously I used only math/CS articles from Wikipedia, and they are pretty good, but yesterday I looked at political articles and they are awful: biased, incorrect, rumors, gossips. I hope it will change, but for now I will recommend everyone to stay away from Wikipedia articles (except of math/CS). Andra1ex (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2023 (UTC) When the heck did Wikipedia go from ice cold facts to Woke Ideology? They're job isn't to push narratives it's to tell people what happened exactly as it happened or explain the dimensions, locations, attributes, etc etc of our world and the life and things in it. Cut it out please wikipedia and stop locking articles so they can't be adjusted John Scagleone (talk) 11:02, 16 June 2023 (UTC) Andra1ex, you seem to have a strong opinion about what is not true here. (You haven't asserted what you believe to be true.) You must get that opinion from somewhere. What sources have informed your opinions? Please list URLs to articles on this subject from a few them so we can be better informed. If we don't base our information on published RS, a method you have rejected above for unknown reasons, then what do you think would be a better way to create content here? Are you aware of who creates our content and their political POV? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:18, 15 June 2023 (UTC) Saying that a country has interfered in another countries elections is like saying that a person has committed a crime against another person. It is a very serious accusation. It can lead to a war. So, until it it is undeniably proved to the extent when the international community (not just some alliance) agrees with this as a fact, such accusation is very dangerous and impermissible. Hence, unless the goal is to increase the risk of humanity such affirmations have to be explicitly described as hypotheses/theories, but not claimed as facts. My opinion is not important and no assertion from my side is necessary, since it is on the authors of the article to base it on facts only. Only the writer has the responsibility to base his text on facts only - the reader is free to base his opinion on whatever he wants (even on fairytales) since the reader is only reading, but not stating anything. Lastly, I am not aware of who creates your content and their political POV. It is not needed. Reading an encyclopedia a reader is not looking for a POV (for this there are other resources) - the reader is looking for a collection of facts. If something is not a fact it either does not have a place in an article or needs to be explicitly presented as an opinion. Take a look at a good article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space. This is how an encyclopedia has to look like. P.S. Since you were very interested, if you want to hear an assertion - here it is. There is no agreement and no proof that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 elections in the USA with a goal to help one of the candidates to win the elections. So far there is evidence that there was no collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia (Durham concluded that federal investigators did not have any actual evidence of collusion between Trump's 2016 campaign), and there is no evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections in any other way (not via colluding with the Trump's 2016 campaign). 24.228.151.249 (talk) 00:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC) Sorry, no. We say reliable sources say and they say that Russian agents did interfere, Trump campaign officials welcomed that interference and even communicated with Russian agents and with Wikileaks on multiple occasions. Andre🚐 00:49, 16 June 2023 (UTC) "We say reliable sources say and they say that..." are you serios? I can answer that "I say reliable sources do not say that...". I hope you war joking when you wrote that sentence. Andra1ex (talk) 01:01, 16 June 2023 (UTC) look up if any charges were filed for this. Because if someone did do this they would have obviously been charged. Innocent until proven guilty I believe is he motto. So since nowhere exists with any of this being proven then it's obviously not true. John Scagleone (talk) 11:04, 16 June 2023 (UTC) Not only were they charged but convicted of several crimes. Andre🚐 12:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC) It is a fact that multiple people were tried and convicted for their participation in the interference. All but the Russians and Trump's allies are convinced of this. They deny it. It is also a fact that Dutch intelligence hacked into Russian systems and a video system from 2014-2016. They were able to record keystrokes and identify each hacker. They monitored the Russian activity and watched as they hacked into the White House, State Department, and Democratic National Committee. Hacking can be analyzed from both ends, and the above is the hacking end. The other end is the analysis of the results of that hacking, and that showed the Russians stole documents, and through the cutouts DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, leaked them to WikiLeaks. I suggest you read the article. It is based on reliable sources, not on the opinions of editors. Myriad editors of all persuasions have worked together to produce this article, so it isn't one person's work or POV. It's based on teamwork. When you have examined its content and checked what the sources say, then you will be informed enough to criticize it. Until then, you are just spouting a rather weird opinion. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:03, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

House rejects effort to censure and fine Democrat Rep. Schiff over Trump-Russia investigations

Is this fact worthy of inclusion in the article? [43]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-rejects-effort-to-censure-and-fine-democrat-rep-schiff-over-trump-russia-investigations Desertphile (talk) 23:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The article says nothing about this matter, and I don't see a logical way to include it. It's more appropriate in his article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:37, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Can we get a single source that isn't a journalists unfounded opinion?

this page is nothing but a compilation of unproven claims by fake journalists. And the link to the intelligence committee's findings goes to some site called the way back that tracks site activity. Wikipedia has inspired me to stock up on more ammunition 24.156.30.244 (talk) 13:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

No, Way Back is a site storage site. But how about this [[44]] or this [[45]] or this [[46]]. Also all the media sources are to reputable media outlets. You might have made a better case has you read the article. Slatersteven (talk) 13:13, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Haha did you even read what you cited. First thing it says is that they have no evidence of Russian interference in the election itself, then claims there was an u precedented number of cyber actors. (More hacking in 2016 than 2012? Amazing! Haha clowns) and then redacts the reason why they claim this. That's laughable. Now I'm on to your next "proof" which I'm sure you put your best foot forward haha . I bet you never read it like you never read Clinton's emails 24.156.30.244 (talk) 13:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

here's a cut and paste from your second source where they basically say this whole thing is based on the fact that they think it's the kind of thing that Russians would do. Hahaha haha fucking clowns got paid my tax dollars to tell me that crap!buying more ammo now.

Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are

consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. Insights into Russian efforts—including specific

cyber operations—and Russian views of key US players derive from multiple corroborating sources 24.156.30.244 (talk) 13:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

"The Russian govemment directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure' at the state and local level" Slatersteven (talk) 13:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are

consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. Insights into Russian efforts—including specific

cyber operations—and Russian views of key US players derive from multiple corroborating sources 24.156.30.244 (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

So? Slatersteven (talk) 13:45, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Taibbi

Taibbi talks as if Russiagate is totally a fabrication (e.g., Matt Taibbi: How the Left Lost Its Mind and Legacy Media Its Audience (reason.com) without any doubt. I haven't read through the Wikipedia completely, but it starts off flatly saying it was real. Is Taibbi's view worth mentioning? 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:6C51:C37D:BE6C:FB1F (talk) 02:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

No. He's a russophile and conspiracy theorist who now writes things contrary to evidence. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 January 2024

The page says that there was election interference by the Russians in the 2016 election. There was an investigation and no proof was found this is true 108.59.178.70 (talk) 03:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: read the article and all the cited sources you find interesting Cannolis (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Espionage in the first phrase

• [47] - I can not include it in the lead because word "espionage" does not appear anywhere on this page. Why it should be in the first phrase? What they did is known as active measures, not just espionage aka intelligence collection. My very best wishes (talk) 22:30, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  But what did they do? Your paragraph is incomprehensible and senseless but it sounds like you're upset that the article isn't harsh enough on the unidentified hackers who exposed the cheating of the DNC through Clinton's, Schultz', and Podesta's emails. 24.156.30.244 (talk) 13:12, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  They explained that the issue was, the lede (please read wp:lede is a summery of the article, So if the word does not appear in the body, it has no place in lede. Slatersteven (talk) 13:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC)