April 30, 2019
MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey
UNZ REVIEW Publishes New Version of Essay “Did the Russians Really
Interfere in Our Elections?”
Friends,
Back on Friday, April 26, 2019, I offered a long,
documented installment in the MY CORNER series titled, “Did the Russians Really Interfere in Our
Elections?” [https://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-25-2019-my-corner-by-boyd-cathey.html]. It was a long and fairly detailed examination of the
accusations of Russian “meddling” and interference in the 2016 elections and in
our domestic politics, generally. And, based on extensive information provided
by a Russian “white paper” on the topic, it offered responses to those
accusations.
I edited that item, and it was picked up and published by The Unz Review on April 28, and I offer
to you, again, in that edited and newly published form:
THE UNZ REVIEW
Did the
Russians Really Interfere in Our Elections?
The
Mueller Report is now public, and our Mainstream Media have filled the airways
with all sorts of commentaries and interpretations. We know that—despite the
very best efforts of the dedicated Leftist attorneys on Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s staff—there was absolutely no coordination between members of the
Trump campaign, or any of his staffers, with Russians. No additional charges
have come as a result, other than accusations made earlier of “process crimes”
(e.g. failure to report earnings on tax forms, failure to report lobbying work,
or not telling investigators what they demanded to hear—“crimes” that
practically every politician in Washington has been guilty of at one time or
another and would normally not cause much of a stir). None of these involved
Russia.
Of
course, that finding has not satisfied many Democrats or the unhinged Leftist
crazies in the media, who continue to have visions of “collusion”—a kind of
communications Alzheimers that has poisoned our media now for years. Thus,
Representative Eric Swalwell (who is one of nearly two dozen Democrats running
for president) continues to assert that there was “collusion,” as does the
irrepressible (and irresponsible) Adam Schiff: “it’s there in plain sight,”
they insist, “if you just look hard enough, and maybe squint just a bit—or
maybe have those specialized 3-D Russia glasses!”
Such
political leaders—along with those further out in the Leftist loonysphere like
Representatives Maxine Waters and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes—continue down their
Primrose path of post-Marxist madness.
But
beyond the collusion/coordination issue, the past couple of weeks have been
filled with a swirling controversy concerning what is called “obstruction of
justice.” And once again, the fundamental issues have been incredibly
politicized. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had an obligation, if he and his
minions discovered “obstruction of justice,” that is, concerted and illegal attempts
to obstruct the investigations by the president or his staff, to present
charges to the Department of Justice. Yet, all he was able to do was assemble a
farrago of “he said/she said” instances, none of which rose to the level of criminal activity. Apparently President
Trump told a subaltern “I wish would you fire Mueller,” or he wished in
a speech in his joking style that “if the Russians had Hillary’s emails, they
would release them,” or he had a private conversation with Vladimir Putin when
they met (as all national leaders do!), or his son met with a Russian attorney
who supposedly had some “dirt” on the Hillary Clinton campaign (which did not
turn out to be the reason for the Trump Tower meeting at all).
None
of the ten or eleven cited instances came anywhere close to being actionable or
criminal under settled law. In each instance cited, the president’s actions (or
desires) fell within his purview and authority under Article II of the
Constitution. And regarding Trump’s desire to fire Mueller, he was on solid
legal ground; the Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, Edmonds vs. the United States,
declared that “inferior” officials, including an independent counsel, could be
removed by presidential action as part of his delegated powers.
And, in any case, Mueller was not dismissed.
Mueller
had an obligation after examining these situations to make a finding; he did
not. By so doing, by avoiding decisions and stringing out such instances in an
obviously political sense, he abdicated his responsibility and did his best to
impugn Donald Trump and his administration…and thus offer grist for continued
Democrat attacks on the president…all the way through the 2020 election.
Mueller
left it up to the Attorney General William Barr…and Congress…to decide how to
proceed. And that is where we are today.
The
one issue that both Democrats and most Republicans seem to agree on, the issue
which both say is “proven conclusively” by Mueller is that the Russians
“attempted to interfere and did interfere” in our 2016 election.
Interesting,
is it not, that the Republicans who zealously defend the president and attack
the obviously political nature of the Mueller Report would accept, as if on
faith and without question, the accusations of Russian interference, also
contained in the report?
Turn
on Fox and watch, say, Martha MacCallum (e.g., “The Story,” April 24, 2019)
declare “we all know now without doubt that the Russians tried to interfere” in
our elections, or listen to most any GOP congressman repeat that same narrative
with unquestioning certitude.
But
that assertion—is it truly backed up factually? Where is the evidence, other
than largely questionable information sourced from our largely discredited
intelligence agencies which, as we know, had a determined goal of overthrowing
the president by any means possible?
Almost
three years have passed from the first fake news that appeared in the media on
the subject of “Russian collusion,” a concerted effort launched to discredit at
first the Donald Trump candidacy and then sabotage his presidency, including
his efforts to stabilize Russian-American relations.
As
proof of Russian actions, the Mueller Report cites the indictments against
twenty-five Russian citizens who were indicted for attempted “interference”
(those Russians are, let us add, quite conveniently out of the country and thus
not prosecutable). When those indictments were issued, Russia pointed out the
flimsy, unsupported and transparently made-up nature of the charges, and
demanded that American authorities provide conclusive proof. Such requests were
rebuffed.
In
order to evaluate the evidence, the Russian government proposed reestablishing
the bilateral expert group on information security that the Obama
Administration had terminated, which could have served as a platform for
conversation on these matters. The American side was also invited to send
Justice Department officials to Russia to attend the proposed public
questioning of the Russian citizens named by Mueller. Additionally, Russia
offered to publicize the exchanges between the two countries following the publication
of the accusations of cyberattacks, exchanges which were conducted through
existing channels between October 2016 and January 2017.
Our
government refused every offer.
A
careful analysis, in fact, fails to show any substantial evidence of Russian cyberattacks
and attempts to “subvert democracy.” By some estimates, possibly $160,000—a
paltry sum—was spent by the Russians during 2016 on social media activities in
the United States. Does anyone wish to discover and compare the amount the
Chinese Communists or the Saudis would have expended during the same period,
for their continued influence and power in Washington and inside-the-Beltway?
It
is helpful to examine the charges that have been made, some included in the
Mueller Report and accepted blindly by most pundits and politicians, both on
the Left and by establishment conservatives.
The
Russian government, via their embassy in Washington, has published a 120 page “white paper,” The Russiagate Hysteria: A Case
of Severe Russiaphobia, responding to the accusations made against them since 2016.
Obviously, the Russian document has a particular viewpoint and very specific
goal, but that should not deter us from examining it and evaluating its
arguments. (I have written on Russia and its relations with the United States
on a number of occasions since 2015 and had pieces published by The Unz Review, Communities Digital News,
and elsewhere. On
my blog, “MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey,” I
have authored a dozen columns addressing this question).
Here
following I list twenty-one claims made regarding Russian interference in the
2016 election and in American domestic affairs. I follow each claim with the
Russian response and how others, as noted, have also responded. In most cases I
retain the original text, at times with my editing, but, in every case, with
all the referenced sources.
These
twenty-one claims should be examined more closely and more calmly, and the
“Russophobic” hysteria we have experienced during the past several years needs
to be put aside for the sake of rational investigative inquiry—and discovering
how the Managerial State and global elites have attempted a “silent coup”
against what’s left of our republic.
These
claims and the responses deserve respectful consideration and detailed
responses:
1.
CLAIM: Russia “meddled” in the U.S. elections by conducting
influence operations, including through social media.
FACT
All
of the claims of Russian trolls that surfaced over the last few years (such as
Russians using the Pokémon Go mobile game and sex toy ads to meddle in the elections –
) are so preposterous and contradictory that they virtually disprove
themselves.
Not
to mention the absurdity of the whole notion of 13 persons and 3 organizations
(whichever country they might represent) charged on February 16, 2018, by
Robert Mueller with criminally interfering with the elections, affecting in any
way electoral processes in a country of more than 300 million people.
It
is telling that when pressed about the scope of the alleged influence campaign,
representatives of American social media companies give numbers, that even if
they were valid (and there’s no evidence of a connection to the Russian
government), are so minuscule as to be basically non-existent. For example,
Facebook has identified 3,000 Russia-linked ads costing a total of about
$100,000. That’s a miniscule number of ads and
a fraction of Facebook’s revenues, which totaled $28 billion. Facebook
estimates that 126 million people might – the emphasis is on the word “might” –
have seen this content. But this number represents just 0.004% of the content
those people saw on the Facebook platform.
Significantly,
Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified to
the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 11th, 2018 that “ad
accounts linked to Russia” spent about $4,700 in advertising” to politically
influence Americans during the 2016 presidential election season.
To
further cast doubt on the allegations, an American watchdog group “Campaign for
Accountability” (“CFA”) admitted on September 4th, 2018, that it deliberately
posted propaganda materials on Google disguised as
“Russian hackers from the Internet Research Agency” to check how they would be
filtered for “foreign interference”. Google officials then accused the CFA as
having ties to a rival tech company “Oracle”. In other words, corporate intrigues disguised as
“Russian interference“.
As
American media has admitted, out of several dozen pre-election rallies
supposedly organized by Russians, Special Counsel Mueller mentions in his
indictment that only a couple actually appear to have successfully attracted
anyone, and those that did were sparsely attended and, almost without
exception, in deep-red enclaves that would have voted for Trump anyway.
Amidst
all the hysteria about the alleged Russian meddling it is worth reading various
research studies which show, quoting “The Washington Post”, that it is
Americans, in particular our intelligence service, that peddle disinformation and
hate speech.
According
to Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research
Lab, the scale and scope of domestic disinformation is much larger than any
foreign influence operation. And academics from the Harvard’s Shorenstein
Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy document in their study that there
had been major spikes in outright fabrication and misleading information
proliferating online before the 2018 U.S. election. A “significant portion” of
the disinformation appeared to come from Americans, not foreigners, the Harvard
researchers said.
2.
CLAIM: Russian hackers accessed computer servers of the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) and leaked materials through Wikileaks and other
intermediaries
FACT
As
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin noted in his interview with
NBC on June 5, 2017, when flatly denying any allegations of Russia interfering
in internal affairs of the U.S., that today’s technology is such that the final
internet address can be masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one will be
able to understand the origin of that address. It is possible to set up any
entity that may indicate one source when, in fact, the source is completely different.
No
evidence has been presented linking Russia to leaked emails. In fact, there are
credible studies arguing that DNC servers are much more likely to have been
breached by someone with immediate and physical access. In 2017 a group of former
officers of the U.S. intelligence community, members of the “Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity” (VIPS), met with then-CIA Director Mike
Pompeo to present their findings.
Those findings demonstrated using forensic analysis that
the DNC data was copied at
a speed that far exceeds an
Internet capability for a remote hack ( , , ), thus suggesting that it was more
likely a removable storage device used.
Another
counterargument to the “Russian hackers” claim is that the DNC files published
by Wikileaks were initially stored under the FAT (File Allocation System)
method which is not related to internet transfers and can only be forwarded to an
external device such as a thumb drive.
It
is also suspicious that the DNC prohibited the FBI from examining the servers.
Instead, a third-party tech firm was hired, “Crowd Strike”, which is known for
peddling the “Russian interference” claims. And soon enough it, indeed,
announced that “Russian malware” has been found, but again no solid evidence
was produced.
According
to the respected former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, the indictment by
the Mueller team on July 13, 2018 of the 12 supposed Russian operatives
was a politically motivated fraud.
As Ritter explains, Mueller seems to have borrowed his list from an
organizational chart of a supposed Russian military intelligence unit,
contained in a classified document from the NSA titled “Spear-Phishing Campaign
TTPs Used Against U.S. And Foreign Government Political Entities”, which was published by The Intercept online.
As stated in that document, this is just a subjective judgement, not a known
fact. Ritter concludes, that this is a far cry from the kind of
incontrovertible proof that Mueller’s team suggests as existing to support its
indictment.
Moreover,
it is telling that the indictment was released just
before the meeting between President Putin and Trump in Helsinki on July 16,
2018, seemingly as if the aim was to intentionally derail the bilateral summit.
3.
CLAIM: Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 U.S.
Presidential elections.
FACT
As
concluded in the summary of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the
investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated
with it conspired or coordinated with Russia
If
the Mueller team, having all the resources of the U.S. government, after 22
months of work, many millions of dollars spent,
more than 2800 subpoenas issued, nearly 500 search warrants and 500 witness
interviews, didn’t find any evidence of “collusion”, it is simply because there
was never any. The whole claim of collusion was launched and peddled by the
same group of Democrats, liberal-leaning media and the so-called “Never Trump
Republicans”, as it became clear that Donald Trump had real chances of winning
the election. And later it morphed into a campaign to derail the newly-elected
President agenda, including his efforts to mitigate the damage done to
U.S.-Russian relations.
4.
CLAIM: Hacking of American political institutions was personally
ordered by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
FACT
This
claim is based on nothing else but the infamous fraudulent “Steele Dossier”,
paid for by political opponents [i.e., the Hilary Clinton campaign] of Donald
Trump, and wild conjectures that
“nothing in Russia happens without Putin’s approval” .
Needless
to say, zero proof is presented. By the same logic, nothing in the U.S. happens
without the President’s approval. For example, is he also responsible for
Edward Snowden? After all, Mr. Snowden was doing work for the U.S. intelligence
services. Or the deaths of all the civilians killed abroad by U.S. drone
strikes? Every minute detail approved by the President?
5.
CLAIM: Russia did not cooperate with the U.S. in tracing the
source of the alleged hacking.
FACT
Russia
has repeatedly offered to set up a professional and de-politicized dialogue on
international information security only to be rebuffed by the U.S. State
Department. For instance, following the discussion between Presidents Vladimir
Putin and Donald Trump in Hamburg on July 7, 2017, Russia forwarded to the U.S.
a proposal to reestablish a bilateral working group on cyber threats which
would have been a perfect medium to discuss American concerns. Moreover, during
his meeting with Donald Trump in Helsinki on July 17, 2018, Vladimir Putin
offered to allow U.S. representatives to be present at an interrogation of the
Russian citizens who were previously accused by the office of Special Counsel
Robert Mueller of being guilty of
electoral interference. Furthermore, in February 2019 the Russian government
suggested publishing bilateral correspondence on the subject of unsanctioned
access to U.S. electronic networks, which was conducted between Washington and
Moscow through the Nuclear Threat Reduction Centers in the period from October
2016 to the end of January 2017.
Needless
to say, all Russian offers were rejected. A conclusion is naturally reached
that American State Department officials have little interest in hearing
anything that contradicts their own narrative or the discredited version of the
CIA.
6.
CLAIM: Russia is interfering in elections all over the world
FACT
No
credible evidence has been produced not only of Russia’s supposed meddling in
the U.S. political processes, but to support similar allegations made by the
U.S. in respect to other countries. For example, former National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster insinuated that Russia was interfering in the Mexican presidential elections of
2018. However, Mexican officials, including the
president of the Mexican Senate Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, and Ambassador to
Russia Norma Pensado during
a press conference in Moscow in February,
2018, debunked this baseless claim.
Another
example of fake news were reports saying that U.S. was increasingly convinced that
Russia hacked French election on May 9, 2017. However, on June 1, 2017, the
head of the French government’s cyber security agency said no trace was
found of the claimed Russian hacking group behind the attack. On the other
hand, the history of U.S. interfering in other countries’ elections is well documented by
American sources (see: ).
For
example, a Carnegie Mellon scholar, Dov H. Levin, has scoured the historical
record and found 81 examples of
U.S. election influence operations from 1946- to 2000. Often cited examples
include Chile in 1964, Guyana in 1968, Nicaragua in 1990, Yugoslavia in 2000,
Afghanistan in 2009, Ukraine in 2014, not to mention Russia in 1996! And how
else could the current situation in Ukraine and Venezuela be described, with
U.S. representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker openly pressuring Ukrainian
voters to support the incumbent,
and Washington possibly plotting a coup in
Caracas?
7.
CLAIM: The lawsuit of the Democratic National Committee against
the Russian Federation related to “interference in the election” has a legal
standing.
FACT
The
DNC filed a civil lawsuit on April 20, 2018 against the Russian Federation and
other entities and individuals. Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the
Russian Federation; the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian
Federation (GRU); the GRU operative using the pseudonym “Guccifer 2.0”; Aras
Iskenerovich Agalarov; Emin Araz Agalarov; Joseph Mifsud; WikiLeaks; Julian
Assange; the Trump campaign (formally “Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.”);
Donald Trump, Jr.; Paul Manafort; Roger Stone; Jared Kushner; George
Papadopoulos; Richard W. Gates; and unnamed defendants sued as John Does 1–10.
The DNC’s complaint accuses the Trump campaign of engaging in a racketeering
enterprise in conjunction with Russia and WikiLeaks.
Even
irrespective of the fact that there was no “interference” in the first place,
the case has no legal standing. Exercise of U.S. jurisdiction over the pending
case with respect to the Russian Federation is a violation of the international
law, specifically, violation of jurisdictional immunities of the Russian
Federation arising from the principle of the sovereign equality of states.
8.
CLAIM: Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak was a spy.
FACT
In
March of 2017 U.S. media began libeling Sergey
Kislyak a “top spy and spy-recruiter” This preposterous claim was based on
nothing but his contacts with Trump confidant Senator Jeff Sessions – carrying
out work any ambassador would do. Per the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic
Relations of 1961, among core diplomatic functions is ascertaining by all lawful means conditions
and developments in the receiving state, and that certainly includes openly
meeting leaders of Congress on Capitol Hill. Even former CIA Director John
McLaughlin noted that Mr. Kislyak is an
experienced diplomat, not a spy.
9.
CLAIM: Russian Embassy retreat in Maryland was an intelligence
base
FACT.
Among
the unlawful acts that U.S. administrations undertook was the expropriation of
a legal Russian property in Maryland, a summer retreat near the Chesapeake Bay
under the pretext it was used for
intelligence gathering. But where is the supposed-treasure trove of alleged spy
equipment that U.S. authorities reportedly found there? Why not show them
publicly to back up the claim? After the expropriation and the claims, not a
word – silence.
The
retreat, “dacha” as Russians would call it, was bought by the former Soviet
Union in 1972. Since then, it was used for recreation, including hosting a
children’s summer camp and regularly entertaining American visitors. One of the
more popular events was the stop-over during the annual Chesapeake Regatta,
completed with an expansive tour of the property. Presumably U.S. intelligence
services could have used this for years to inspect the property. Why was
nothing ever mentioned before the Obama Administration action?
10.
CLAIM: The meeting in Trump Tower in New York on June 9, 2016
between Trump campaign officials and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was
to discuss compromising materials that Russian had on Hillary Clinton.
FACT
According to testimony provided
to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Veselnitskaya focused on explaining
the illicit activities of U.S.-British investor Bill Browder, wanted in Russia
for crimes, and brought attention to the adverse effects of the so-called
“Magnitskiy Act”, adopted by U.S. Congress in 2012 and lobbied for by Browder.
11.
CLAIM: Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, met with
Russians in Prague to “collude”.
FACT
It
was reported in American media that the Justice Department special counsel had
evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly made a
trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign to meet with Russian
representatives, a fact also mentioned in
the discredited “Steele Dossier”. This was given as further evidence of
“collusion”. But Cohen vehemently denied this – under oath. Passport
records indicate that
he never was in Prague. He was actually on vacation with his son at the
supposed time. Given that he publicly turned on his former boss and still
denied the fact of ever going to Prague disproves this claim further.
12.
CLAIM: Former member of the Trump campaign team Carter Page was a
Russian intelligence asset.
FACT
According
to members of Congress and journalistic investigations, the redacted
declassified documents of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISC, also called the FISA Court) show that the main source used
by U.S. counterintelligence to justify spying on Mr. Page was the fraudulent
so-called “Steele Dossier”.
Thus,
Mr. Page for obvious reasons was not accused by the team of Robert Mueller of
being involved in a “Russian conspiracy”.
13.
CLAIM: On August 22, 2018, The Democratic National Committee filed
a claim with the FBI, accusing the “Russian hackers” of infiltrating its
electoral database.
FACT
Several
days later members of the Democratic Party admitted that
it was a “false alarm”, as it was simply a security check-up performed at the
initiative of the Democratic Party’s affiliate in Michigan.
14.
CLAIM: On August 8, 2018 U.S. Senator Bill Nelson accused Russia
of breaching the infrastructure of the voter registration systems in several
local election offices of Florida.
FACT
Florida’s
Department of State spokesperson, Sarah Revell, stated on August 9, 2018, that
Florida’s government had not received any evidence from competent authorities
that Florida’s voting systems or election records had been compromised. The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI also could not confirm in
any manner the accusations.
15.
CLAIM: In September, 2017 the U.S. media, referring to the
Department of Homeland Security, accused Russia of “cyberattacks” on electoral
infrastructure in 21 states during the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.
FACT
On
September 27, 2017, Wisconsin and California authorities stated that their
electoral systems were not targeted by cyberattacks. On November 12, 2017, the
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a CBS interview that the
“hackers’ activity” had no significant consequences and did not influence the
outcome of the elections. And, indeed, the source of those attacks was not
clear.
16.
CLAIM: Russia meddled in the Alabama 2017 Senate elections to help
the Republican candidate.
FACT
Despite the initial claims,
it turned out that a group of Democratic tech experts decided to imitate
so-called “Russian tactics” in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate racе. Even
more jarring is the fact that one participant in the “Alabama project”,
Jonathon Morgan, is chief executive of “New Knowledge”, a cyber security firm
that wrote a scathing account of
Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released in 2018
by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Once again, we have one of the main
private sector players in hyping the Russian threat caught red-handed.
17.
CLAIM: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign
chairman, was a secret link to Russian intelligence.
FACT
Trump’s
former campaign chairman was hit with two indictments from Mueller’s office.
However, even as American media notes, both cases have nothing to
do with Russia and stemmed from his years as a political consultant for the
Ukrainian government and his failure to pay taxes on the millions he earned,
his failure to report the foreign bank accounts he used to stash that money,
and his failure to report his work to the US government. In his second case in
Virginia, he was also chargedwith
committing bank fraud to boost his assets when the Ukraine work dried up.
In
fact, serious concerns have been raised in the U.S. that it was Ukrainian
officials who tried to influence the 2016 elections by leaking compromising materials on
Mr. Manafort.
The
Ukrainian connection is also prevalent in the case of money transferred to
accounts of American politicians. For instance, according to a “New York Times”
article, Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk donated over 10 million dollars to
the “Clinton Foundation while just 150 thousand dollars to the “Trump
Foundation”.
18.
CLAIM: Russia compromised the Vermont power grid.
FACT
On
December 31, 2016, “The Washington Post”, accused “Russian hackers” of
compromising the Vermont power grid. The local company, “Burlington Electric”,
allegedly traced a malware code in a laptop of one of its employees. It was
stated that the same “code” was used to hack the Democratic Party servers in
2016. However, the “Wordfence” cybersecurity firm checked “Burlington Electric”
for hacking, and said that the malware code was openly available, for instance,
on a web-site of Ukrainian hackers. The attackers were using
IP-addresses from across the world. “The Washington Post” later admitted that
conclusions on Russia’s involvement were false.
19.
CLAIM: Russian Alfa Bank was used as a secret communication link
with the Trump campaign.
FACT
In
October 2016 a new “accusation” appeared, alleging that
a message exchange between the Alfa Bank server and Trump organizations
indicated a «secret» Trump – Russia communication channel.
20.
CLAIM: Russia cracked voter registration systems during the 2016
U.S. elections.
FACT
In
July 2016 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security accused Russia of gaining
unauthorized access to electronic voter registration systems in Arizona. But on
April 8, 2018, “Reuters”, referring to a high-ranking U.S.
administration official, wrote there was no proof Russia had anything to do
with the mentioned cyberattack.
21.
CLAIM: Russian Embassy bank transactions were linked to “election
interference”.
FACT
American
publication “Buzzfeed” repeatedly claimed that
U.S. authorities flagged Russian Embassy financial transfers as suspicious,
many of them dated around the 2016 election. In reality, the media outlet, by
twisting the facts and placing them out of context, made routine banking
transactions – salary transfers, payments to contractors – look
nefarious. It is not uncommon for
embassy personnel to receive larger payouts, transfer or withdraw larger sums
of money at the end of their work. Furthermore, leaking of confidential banking
information of persons and organizations protected by diplomatic immunity
raised concerns about the likely involvement of security services.
The arrest in October 2018 of a U.S.
Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network official, charged
with leaking information both about the Russian Embassy accounts and former
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, provides further proof to the theory of
political skullduggery.
————————————————–
Most
of these responses have not been fully examined or addressed by major media,
nor, for that matter, by Fox News, dominated as it is by an almost instinctive
Neoconservative Russophobia (the one possible exception being Tucker Carlson).
For
the American Left, since the collapse of Communism and the growth of a
traditionalist nationalism (under Vladimir Putin), Russia has become a
convenient target. When the Soviets were in power prior to 1991, the USSR was
seen as a “progressive” presence in the world, even if by the requirements of
American politics the Left was forced to make ritualistic condemnations of the
more extreme elements of Soviet statecraft. Now that post-Communist Russia bans
same sex marriage, glorifies the traditional family, and the conservative
Russian Orthodox Church occupies a special position of esteem and prominence,
that admiration has turned to fear and loathing. And that Russia and its
president have been viewed as favorable to the hated Donald Trump doubly
confirms that hostility and targeting.
For
the dominant Neoconservatives and many Republicans, contemporary Russia is seen
as “anti-democratic,” “reactionary,” and a threat to American world hegemony
(and the refusal to bow to that hegemony, whether economically, politically, or
culturally). Indeed, as a major intellectual force, Neoconservatism owes much
of its origins to Eastern European and Russia Jews, many of whose ancestors
were at direct odds with the old pre-1917 Tsarist state. That animus, those
nightmares of pogroms and oppression, have never completely subsided. A modern
traditionalist, Orthodox Russia is viewed as antithetical to their more
liberal, even Leftwing ideas (e.g., increasing “conservative” acceptance of
same sex marriage, “moderate” feminism, and a whole panoply of “forward
looking” views on civil rights issues—all of which are present on Fox News.)
Memory
of “the bad old days” has never disappeared.
None
of this history should prevent a close examination of the current accusations
against Russia, nor our search for the truth. Much—perhaps the future of
Western civilization itself—depends on it.
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