Wikileaks’ Vault 7 publication of a massive cache of CIA documents now reveals one of the most crucial bits of information yet — the government cannot possibly prove its crackpot Russian hackers theory about the U.S. election, because the CIA has all the tools to make it appear as if The Russians Did It, whether or not they did.

Further, the CIA, itself  — not The Russians, as officials have alleged — might be responsible for putative electronic ‘fingerprints’ left upon purported hacks into various official U.S. systems, since the agency keeps a voluminous ‘library’ of malware deployed by foreign nations.

Wikileaks reports:

“The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.”

This means the CIA in essence maintains a veritable wardrobe from which it can choose to don the cloak of another country whenever a mission would deem that necessary — even if the target of the deception were other agencies within the United States government.

Wikileaks continues:

“The CIA’s hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a ‘fingerprint’ that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity.

“This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved then the other murders also find likely attribution.”

Of course, this would be a false attribution planted by the agency to throw off anyone hunting evidence hackers have compromised a system. Meaning, in short, officials with the NSA and other Intelligence agencies likely did detect the electronic markings of the Russian government — but they could easily have been instead left by the CIA.

Indeed, as Jerome Corsi writes, this presents the “possibility that the Obama administration obtained FISA permission to conduct electronic surveillance on Russians believed to be coordinating with the Trump campaign based on intelligence the CIA planted to deceive the NSA into thinking there was actual contact between Russian agents and the Trump campaign.”

And if any doubt exists the CIA would be that duplicitous in its methods, another revelation from Vault 7, in a document Codex, is how to thwart any investigative efforts.

“With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from,” Wikileaks continues.

“UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.”

Incidentally, the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary lists as the first definition for the word, umbrage, “an area of comparative darkness,”or “an overshadowing influence or power.”

Wikileaks’ tweeted with a link to the Codex document, “CIA classifies hacking document to avoid ‘law enforcement’ attributing CIA attacks to the CIA” — and included an excerpt stating,

“This specification is classified SECRET//ORCON/NOFORN to avoid hostile Foreign Intelligence Operations, Law Enforcement, Incident Response, Reverse Engineering, or any other investigation of captured tools or techniques resulting in attribution to the United States Government or the Central Intelligence Agency. …”

Further still, the Democratic National Committee and former presidential candidate and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, sought to smear Republican politicians by inflating purported pro-Russia sentiment to tarnish candidate Donald Trump.

In a communique dated April 27, 2016, two DNC insiders discuss Rand Paul’s former foreign policy adviser, Dmitri Simes, and alleged recently-discovered ties to the Russian government, stating, in part,

“We don’t have a ton on Simes, but the pro-Russia stuff ties in pretty well to idea that Trump is too friendly with Putin/weak on Russia.”

While these documents don’t provide unassailable evidence the CIA actually planted Russian Federation electronic fingerprints in government systems, they do prove the agency not only has the capability, but the foresight to insert an impenetrable shield against probing investigative agents.

A last point to consider in the Russian Hackers conspiracy so beloved by politicians and mainstream presstitutes, alike — months have passed without proof any agent or associate of the Russian Federation penetrated any U.S. computer system in a manner departing typical State hacks.

Indeed, the only significant evidence provided by officials clamoring loudest about Russian hacking has been the exact fingerprints Vault 7 proves the CIA can surreptitiously insert.

It now seems apparent that if we’ve been duped, as a nation, the actor has been under our noses — not thousands of miles away — all along.

Article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.