[santoriv]

> The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("We have communication intercepts between the hacking groups and the GRU/FSB, and there they are, and here is how we got them" - it's likely there are actual humans involved in that process who will die if they are exposed).

This argument seems plausible. Even so, they are doing a very poor job of convincing knowledgeable folks.

To a large degree, this comes down to an issue of trust.

Do you trust the US intelligence community?

Consider that James Clapper, the current Director of National Intelligence, "wittingly" lied to Congress about spying on US citizens. Also consider that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee while the committee was investigating the CIA's torture program, initially lied about it to the Senate, then admitted it but said that it wasn't wrong.

They lie with impunity to Congress, the people who _theoretically_ have power over their budgets.

Do you think they will balk at lying to the press or the American public?

[edblarney]

"To a large degree, this comes down to an issue of trust."

The other major issue was that it was in the context of a political campaign, and one side could claim the other was doing whatever for political reasons.

I think outside of Trump v. Clinton, it might have had more credibility in terms of perception.

[AnimalMuppet]

Clapper lied because he considered the program (the one he lied to defend) to be in the security interest of the US. One could see, from his point of view, why he could think this. (I think it's too narrow a view, but I can see how he could have tunnel vision in this area.)

Does the intelligence community have reason to believe that lying about Russian attempts to manipulate a US presidential election are justified? For them to believe that, they'd have to believe either that Trump is an existential threat to the US, or that Russia must be countered starting immediately.