Lawfare Archive: Susan Hennessey and Matt Tait Go on a Political Witch Hunt

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

From January 7, 2017: In an interview with The New York Times before his intelligence briefing on Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump called the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference a "political witch hunt." In that spirit, Benjamin Wittes brought Lawfare managing editor Susan Hennessey and former GCHQ information security specialist Matt Tait on the podcast to discuss evidence of Russian attempts to influence the presidential election and Trump's baffling response.

A quick note: This podcast was recorded before the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the intelligence community's report on Russian interference. Susan and Matt's firm belief that the hacking of Democratic Party information was carried out neither by a 14-year-old nor by a 400-pound person sitting on a bed, however, remains unshaken.

Ben says he still suspects a 400-pound 14-year-old sitting on a bed—albeit a bed in Moscow at GRU headquarters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising.
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0:18.2	Also, check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter,
0:25.2	Lawfare No Bull, and The Aftermath.
0:32.7	Government's Future Frontiers is a brand new podcast brought to you by Deloitte, hosted by me, Tanya Ott.
0:40.5	I'll be joined by decision makers from government, not-for-profits, academia, and private industry to explore the way that the world will function in the coming decades.
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1:01.0	I'm Caroline Cornett, Internat Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare
1:18.1	for January 18, 2025, with Donald Trump set to be inaugurated Monday as the 47th President
1:25.8	of the United States.
1:29.1	This ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and its implications for global politics raise questions about America's
1:34.4	relations with Russia. For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from January 7th,
1:41.2	2017, in which Susan Hennessy and Matt Tate sat down with Quinta
1:46.4	Jurassic to discuss the revelation that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election
1:52.4	in Trump's favor.
1:54.2	They talked about the evidence for Russian interference, Trump's claims that it was a political
1:58.7	witch hunt, and more.
2:17.7	I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast, January 7th, 2017. The Senate Armed Services Committee met this week for a political witch hunt, as Donald Trump called it.
2:26.6	It was a bipartisan show of confidence in the U.S. intelligence community and its conclusions that the Russians were behind the hack of the DNC and John Podesta.
2:40.8	We brought on two superbly qualified guests to discuss the goings-on.
2:46.8	Matt Tate is a former hacker for GCHQ and a cybersecurity expert in London.
	...

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