While most of the focus of the claimed Russian hacking has been on reported attempts to influence the U.S. Presidential election last year, slipping nearly unnoticed and under the headline was hacking attempts regarding energy….namely “fracking.”
It’s buried deep in the recently-released declassified version of a report by the U.S. intelligence community. U.S. Sen. James Lankford touched on it Tuesday during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee confirmation hearing for retired Marine Gen. John Kelly to head the Homeland Security Department. His questions about the fracking influence came near the end of his few minutes to question Gen. Kelly.
What Sen. Lankford referred to was a brief paragraph about Russian attempts to influence many things in the U.S., practices that go back decades.
“RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health. This is likely reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom’s profitability (5 October).”
RT America TV is a Kremlin-financed channel operated from within the U.S.
The same intelligence report indicated that Russian attempts to influence U.S. presidential elections goes back to the 1960s.
Listen to Sen. Lankford’s questioning of Gen. Kelly.