I'm referring to parent of this whole thread, which (briefly) is a press release that says, "Here are some ways you can protect yourself from the kind of attack the Russians did on the DNC" and then goes on to describe spear-phishing.

The reason this is unusual is because the intelligence agencies are being so matter-of-fact about this. They're not trying to convince anyone, like they did with Iraq's WMDs. They're not giving out pointed leaks and then officially denying them. They - meaning multiple agencies - are jut saying, "Yeah, it was Russia", as if it's a settled issue.

The conclusion I draw from this is that there must be very strong evidence. Could that evidence be forged? Sure! (Another reason why the "show me the evidence or I won't believe it!" people sound nutso - why would they think it wasn't forged?) But to believe it's forged we need at least a plausible theory as to who would forge it and why. Right now, I'm drawing a blank.

Absolutely any state that would enjoy the benefits of the distractions that comes with an escalated political conflict, Israel, China, Saudi Arabia. Think about how quickly Erdogan switched from being US ally to being best chums with Russians and helping with the peace negotiations with Iran after the attempted coup. Was it Russia, was it US, what was the motive, does one have motive to frame the other?

It's not their job to do the convincing, they leave that to CNN, MSNBC or FOX. They just give some superficial material to get the ball rolling. There was next to no in depth articulation as to how this was definitely Russia. They're still twiddling their thumbs and saying 'we're confident' it was them.

You're suggesting that a foreign country supplied the FBI with forged evidence, and the FBI said, "Well, this doesn't match our own investigation, but I guess we'll just assume it's true anyway, now let's announce it to the world on our official letterhead"? Does that sound likely to you?