"The Document Was Bad Intelligence"

According to a new report, former FBI Director James Comey's public communications during the election about the Hillary Clinton email probe were influenced by a fake Russian intelligence document. Of course.

Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post: How a Dubious Russian Document Influenced the FBI's Handling of the Clinton Probe.

I strongly urge you to go read the entire article, because there is a lot there and it's difficult to easily summarize.

I will only say this: Given that the FBI's own assessment has found that "the document was bad intelligence—and according to people familiar with its contents, possibly even a fake sent to confuse the bureau," there is a distinct possibility, as Eastsidekate noted in a private conversation (which I'm sharing with her permission), that "the Kremlin understood that the US intelligence community harbored an irrational hatred of HRC, and used that to its advantage."

In other words, Putin was probably well aware he isn't the only man of influence who hates Clinton, and he leveraged that hatred to play the U.S. intelligence community.

Tell me again how misogyny didn't play a role in this election.