From Zero Hedge:

Update: the machinery begins to move:

• CHAIRMAN OF U.S. SENATE CYBER SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE TO INTRODUCE BILL IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA AFTER U.S. POLITICAL HACKING ACCUSATIONS

* * *

After months of speculation whether the US would officially accuse Russia of being responsible for various intrusions and hacks, primarily involving the Democratic party, moments ago we finally got the long-anticipated confirmation when the US named Russia as the actor behind the hacking attempts on political organizations and, more importantly, state election systems and accused Putin of carrying out a wide-ranging campaign to interfere with the 2016 elections, including by hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee and other political officials.

In a statement, the US “intelligence community” said that it is “confident” that the Russian government “directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations”, the Department of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence on Election Security said in a joint statement.

The US added that “these thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process”.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” a U.S. government statement said on Friday about hacking of political groups. Alternatively, the activities could have been authorized by some “senior-most” US official, with the intention of creating the first false flag cyberwar.

The statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not blame the Russian government for hacking attempts against state election systems, but said “scanning and probing” of those systems originated in most cases from servers operated by a Russian company.

“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” the statement said. “However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government,” the statement said.