The New York Times article on the intelligence assessment of Russian meddling in the election overstates a “preference” for President-elect Donald Trump that Russia developed, while downplaying the core motivations outlined in the report.
From BizPac Review
The assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies outlined in the report is that Russia’s goal when it crafted and implemented the influence campaign was to undermine the integrity of the U.S. election and to denigrate Hillary Clinton. Yet the NYT barely mentions these motivations in its breaking take on the report, and blasted out a headline wrongly declaring President Vladimir Putin “ordered” the campaign to help Trump.
“Vladimir Putin ‘ordered an influence campaign’ aimed at helping Donald Trump win,” the breaking news headline read. But the intel report did not state that Putin ordered the campaign to help Trump win. Rather, the report stated that intel officials believe Russia developed a “preference” for Trump late in the campaign.
The intel report makes its assessment of Putin’s core motivations very clear: “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
The NYT story does not quote from that line, but does heavily quote from the part of the intel report regarding the “preference” Russia developed for Trump. “We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the intel report states.
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