Since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election on November 8, majority the world's reaction is nothing short of shock and disbelief. A month after the controversial victory, CIA and FBI confirmed with one another that the results were pretty much rigged by the most popular culprit - the Russians.
The latest report by the Washington Post details how James B. Comey (FBI Director) and James R. Clapper Jr. (Director of National Intelligence) agreed with the CIA's analysis that Russia is covertly involved in manipulating the events during the election season. Until this recent change of viewpoint by the FBI director, White House officials and lawmakers were convinced that FBI and CIA do not share the same opinion.
Obama vs. Putin feud
The Obama Administration has always been at odds with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In 2013, Russia granted political sanctuary to the most notorious American whistleblower in contemporary history - Edward Snowden. The US-Russian relations further deteriorated during the height of Russian military intervention in Syria.
US Retaliation On Putin
According to a similar report by The New York Times two months ago, Vladimir Putin's covert and roguish military actions were a far more legitimate threat than ISIS. To some extent, the events that inconvenienced American foreign policies were mostly engineered by Russian agents. Since then, Obama Administration responded with their own counter-espionage methods to discourage Putin (sadly, to no apparent effect). The leaking of Putin's alleged plundered wealth has just made the Russian leader bolder.
The Hillary Clinton Trigger
Curiously, of all the rivals Putin hates the most, none could probably top Hillary Clinton. The reason behind the personal grudge has a lot to do with her brewing mass dissent in Russia during his election victory in 2011. It seems that the 'state of extreme vigilance' by White House intelligence against 2016 election cyber-attacks, as reported by Jobs & Hire last month, did not prove 'extreme enough.'
