i frankly don't think it matters if the russians ran social media bots. that is protected speech under the first amendment. to me, the bigger questions are surrounding why it is that the fbi is cracking down on free speech, and using this kind of fake crisis as an opportunity to do so.
but, let us put that aside to address the hacking allegations.
my understanding of this is that it was sophisticated enough that the list of suspects is very short:
1) israel
2) the cia
3) china
aaron kind of unconvincingly drops the point he should be pushing back on. "sure, it could have been the russians..."
the quick story is that russia went through a total collapse at the same time as the technological revolution. the russians were always way behind us and needed our help to keep up (see sutton). but, the technology situation is really dire, due to that perfect storm.
putin has spoken at length about the need to end russia's reliance on american technology.
and, it's worse than you might imagine, for them, too. the intelligence consensus has long been that the russians rely on microsoft products and other american technologies that make it easy for america to get into their networks, but never developed the state capacity - which is different than random hackers - to engage in information warfare in any meaningful sense, because they lack the basic infrastructure to do it.
so, i frankly don't think that the russians actually have the capability to do this.
but, we're looking at other suspects, nonetheless.
if it was china, and any evidence existed, they would be targeted immediately, although there is little motive for the chinese to prefer trump (and i agree that the russians at least hate hillary, even as i'm less convinced that they love trump).
that leaves israel or the cia. but, i don't think you have to actually choose.
and, aaron is in fact aware of the evidence tying israel to the mess, because i've heard him talk about it. netanyahu is quite partisan in the united states, clearly preferring the republican party.
collusion becomes occam's razor, in the case of israeli involvement, due to how closely mossad works with the cia. there are examples of mossad working behind the cia's back, but that was a long time ago, and the state department's shady behaviour in making unsubstantiated claims doesn't uphold the idea that they were in the dark.
but, regardless of the extent of israeli involvement, it can't happen without ultimate direction from the cia, who leaked to assange, who then became their useful idiot.
the evidence is there, if you wish to look for it.
jagmeet singh must cut his beard