Sen. Mark Warner of Senate Intelligence Committee says social media in 2016 didn’t favor one party over another, just sought to capitalize on divisive issues-Breitbart

8/3/18, “Sen. Mark Warner Strays from Dem Talking Point, Says Foreign Interference Didn’t Favor Any Party,” Breitbart, Aaron Klein 

“Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, seems to have strayed from the Democrats’ talking point, reinforced by Obama-era intelligence agencies, that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election specifically to ensure that Donald Trump was victorious. 

Warner stated: “This is one where ‎there is no Democratic or Republican ‎answer since clearly the goal of our ‎adversaries was not to favor one party ‎over the other. It was to wreak havoc and ‎split divisions.” 

Warner made those brief closing remarks at the end of Wednesday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing on “foreign influence on social media” that focused significantly on the 2016 election. 

The hearing took place nearly one month after Warner’s Senate intelligence committee released a seven-page report documenting its initial findings in its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and affirming a U.S. Intelligence Community report alleging the Russian government specifically sought to aid Donald Trump’s election chances…. 

This conclusion is contradicted by an extensive Republican House Intelligence Committee report, and the narrative of Russia seeking to get Trump elected was partially challenged by the recently released book of James Clapper,who served as director of National Intelligence under the Obama administration. It was Clapper’s agency that released the Intelligence Community report…. 

As Breitbart News reported, Clapper’s recent book describes numerous shifts in Russia’s alleged attitude toward Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

At first, Clapper writes that Russia simply opposed Hillary Clinton and didn’t favor one Republican presidential candidate. After Trump seemed initially poised to possibly win, Clapper relates an alleged Russian propaganda effort to aid Trump’s victory in order to defeat Clinton. Toward the final stretch of the presidential campaign, with Trump’s poll numbers falling, Clapper wrote that Russia shifted its position away from aiding Trump and focused mainly on opposing Clinton, even allegedly providing Green Party candidate Jill Stein with more favorable coverage…. 

The January 6, 2017 U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) report found the Russian government sought to aid Trump’s “election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”…

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