What's being described as a series of unrelated "technical glitches" on C-SPAN and MSNBC had social media buzzing at a possible hack by the Russian TV network Russia Today.

The C-SPAN feed of confirmation hearings was interrupted for 10 minutes when a feed from RT appeared on the screen intsead.  C-SPAN claims it's a "routing issue":

pic.twitter.com/ybUWoxNTLn

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 12, 2017

Then there was an incident at the CIA confirmation hearings where the lights in the hearing room went out:

Thursday morning, the CIA confirmation hearing was interrupted when the lights mysteriously went out during the hearing. The blackout occurred about ten minutes into the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearing for Representative Mike Pompeo.

“Chairman Burr and I have committed to conduct a review of the intelligence supporting the Intelligence Community’s assessment that Russia, at the direction –,” Sen. Mark Warner said, when the power to the room, including the camera feed, cut out at 10:14 a.m Eastern time. Sen. Warner went on to say, “…of President Vladimir Putin,” according to the New York Post.

Finally, during an appearance by Washington Post reporter David Ignatius on MSNBC, another technical glitch caused him to repeat the word "Russia" several dozen times:

This, of course, is fodder for the conspiracy theorists.  But to believe it's all Russia's fault, you have to believe in precognition.  How would Russian hackers, or anyone else, know when to turn the lights out in the hearing room just as the committee was talking about Russia?  And how could hackers know that Ignatius was going to say the word "Russia" right at that time?

The explanation by C-SPAN is plausible, but we await the results of their investigation.  Meanwhile, people – chill.  All this talk about Russian hacks has us ascribing even the most innocent coincidences to the evil machinations of the Kremlin.  And always employ Occam's Razor: when in doubt, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Thomas Lifson adds:

All those conspiracy theorists need to ask themselves, "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits?").  If you believe this was all planned, why would Russia want to demonstrate its ability to hack our information suppliers?  That would only reinforce the narrative that Trump haters are pushing.  If anyone had a motive to do this, it would be the left.