There are only two possible explanations for that:

1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months

2) There is clear and damning evidence that Russia did it, but it's classified

If they had damning evidence it'd be in their interest to release it.

Not that I don't believe you -- motive and opportunity for Russia are crystal clear here, and given that the results of the election are not going to be overturned, I see little gain for the current administration to lie about this.

Unless the actual perpetrators were the US intelligence community and/or the incoming administration. Then they could both hide their tracks or have no reason to unravel this. But why suspect the group with the most to gain or the community with the most experience doing this? It's not like there's any other examples of a Republican politician breaking into the DNC to tap their communications, using the intelligence agencies to help cover it up...

If the 2 were true, there would be also some conspiration to keep those important infomations classified.

Also, I can't help thinking about Snowden and the blown whistle of the NSA spying scheme.

We know our security agencies (and high level politicians) are not just dishonest, but actively violating the constitution. That people still mock those who distrust these agencies is so strange.

I'm more than willing to believe they're lying but I need something. Some evidence, a credible motive, a plausible story. You can't just say, "Well the FBI says so, and they lie all the time, so we can be sure it isn't so." That's the road that leads to disbelieving the moon landing.

> but I need something

That's how a lot of people feel about this whole "Russians rigged the election" thing, we'd like some evidence a little more substantial than "trust us", or at least we'd like to hear those words from someone we can trust, although no names come to mind. I can't think of very many public figures that I would trust these days.

It is perhaps significant that the "further analysis" leakfest started after Trump had already disappointed the spooks by bagging their special briefings, rather than back when all of the actual underlying facts were publicized well before election day. They always think they've got a thick enough profile of the incoming executive to bend him as far as they want. For example, Obama never closed their favorite EST Caribbean vacation-and-torture resort, even though doing so was a major campaign plank the first time around. Who knows what incriminating documents proved so persuasive? Maybe this time we've somehow elected someone who won't be in their pocket from Day One?

I agree on Obama, I think something must happen in the first few days where the new President is sat down and gets told how things really work. I would think that is what happened to many of Obama's promises. I doubt anyone would look forward to having that talk with Donald Trump.

Perhaps Obama is trying to make Trump's new administration look illegitimate?

Quite predictable, since they also considered the wild accusations of various politicians of a high level Russian conspiracy to be evidence.

In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has cost trillions of dollars and many lives, among many other bad decisions that they all agree on.

So it's not nearly as low of a bar as you think. It's like you're claiming we must trust pharmaceutical representatives from competing companies when they both agree that we all need more pills.

Why is there urgency to rush to judgment about alleged Russian election meddling?

If it happened, then unless anyone thinks the outcome of the election should be reversed, we have four years to get to the bottom of it, take action, and prevent it from happening again.

It's very much reminiscent of the blind urgency to invade Iraq on shaky evidence. Note that one tactic used to get people to act is to create urgency. The simplest example is "this offer expires in 5 minutes..."

It's not so much that I give no credit to any officials as having authority, it's that they all agree on the knee-jerk urgency when there is no apparent need to do so, and none feel obligated to offer a point by point probability assessment of whatever information, inference, or intelligence has them 100% convinced, since the information disclosed so far paints a vague, circumstantial picture.

This sort of elitist disregard for the basic rationality of the public is not something I can stomach, so I simply can't take their assurances at face value.

This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.

But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now.

I think this is correct, and largely why the Russia meddling has become more an article of faith than a highly concerning possibility.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/05/12/selective-intel...

> The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

Also, not sure how the agency count helps anything. Exactly what did agencies like the NRO and Coast Guard contribute here?