CrowdStrike’s weak forensic evidence even led to the somewhat-laughable caper where a Vermont utility found a code listed in the report on a laptop, which prompted the Washington Post to run a story about Russians hacking the electrical grid, with quotes from breathless Vermont Democrats decrying the Russian threat. In the end, it became apparent that the malware wasn’t associated with the Russians, that the laptop wasn’t connected to the grid, and that the illustrious Washington Post hadn’t bothered to contact the Vermont utility before publishing.

The DNI report, out in January 2017, was no better. While all except the NSA pinned the DNC and Podesta hacks on Russia with a high degree of confidence, the report forgot to include any new information. A third of the DNI report was devoted to decrying RT, the Russian-owned cable channel that nobody watches. The report went on to make the ludicrous claim that Russia peddled propaganda such as “Hillary’s no-fly zone risked starting a war with Russia,” when this was a legitimate concern many voters and members of Congress held, given a no-fly zone would require that American airpower shoot down Russian aircraft over Syria.

As to the two pages that did cover the supposed Russian hack of the DNC, cybersecurity and intelligence experts widely held the report to be underwhelming at best. Much of it was yet again a regurgitation of techy-sounding but generic terms.