I’m with you as to the dangers of wild conjecture and turning coincidence into conspiracy but, I’ve also read and reread Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ and Von Clausewitz (only once-thank God) and Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, not that it makes me an expert, but as you say, the timing is fascinating. BTW: all required reading at West Point and Annapolis since mid-to late1800’s.

And as to admitting that the ‘grave risk’ hack affected any agencies’ abilities to share intel, we’ll never know. And for good reason. I get that.

Admitting to the full extent of the damage would mean the hack was tantamount to an act of war. Even Trump minimized it, saying it was all under control.

But I go with John le Carré, all espionage is deception. What did they get up to for two full months of unfettered access?

Here’s the list of agencies hacked: The State Department, Commerce Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the National Institutes of Health, The Energy Department, The National Security Agency and the National Nuclear Security Administration. (I was wrong about the FBI and the CIA).

I go with the NYT report: “…the hackers planted their own “back doors,” imitated legitimate email users and fooled the electronic systems that are supposed to assure the identities of users with the right passwords and additional authentication.”

However, as it looks today, it might be a moot issue as it would appear that some of the rioters had inside help.