Name:   copperline - Subject:   good question Date:   7/7/2017 12:22:14 PM

You are right.   The Intelligence branches of the US Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement Agency probably had no reason to contribute opinions about Russian meddling in the election.   However, the CIA, NSA, & FBI certainly did.

But B Obama DID react to reports of the election hacking, he imposed sanctions and directly confronted Putin about it, even making sure that D Trump's campaign had fair warning about related issues (think Mike Flynn).    Instead of holding on to those sanctions, Trump began his efforts to retract them as soon as he was elected.

Obama did not (and could not) stop the election from proceeding... which was about the only thing that would have really allowed us time to assess and deal with what was happening to us.    From a political perspective, D Trump's constant drumbeat that 'the election is rigged' created a huge impediment for a public response to the Russian meddling, and served to encourage his followers to believe that it was actually Obama who was criminally meddling with the election process instead.

From the Russian point of view, this has been a brilliantly concieved and executed operation.   In order to be a strong Trump supporter now, you have to have more confidence in the Russian government as a reliable source of information than our own.....and dismiss the opinions of the US government, military & intelligence agencies completely.