Refresh my memory: how exactly did the Russians “hijack” the 2016 election? The only thing that comes to mind is that the Russians hacked a Democratic email server and released embarrassing but true information that might have cost the Democrats votes. Yes, it’s disturbing that a foreign national government interceded in the presidential election process; but would people be screaming as loudly if, say, the Israelis had released compromising information about Trump?
There is this awesome document that explains in exquisite detail all that the Russians did to compromise our election in 2016. You only need to read the first half of it, and some parts are blotted out, so you don’t have to read those either. You’d do well to acquaint yourself with it.
- At this late date I find it surprising that this is the only thing that comes to mind.
- That “screaming” adjective to describe people that have opposing opinions is getting a bit moldy…but since it tells us exactly what your position is, I guess it does come in handy.
I was thinking again about this question today, and I realized something ironic.
I recently listened to a podcast about how we pick a president, which went into some detail about how we came to have our present nominating process. That process was made vastly MORE democratic in the late 1960s and early 1970s largely in response to the 1968 Democratic nominating process. (More than just the convention, but motivated in large part by what happened at the convention). The Republican party implemented the same or similar democratic reforms, which put the nomination decision much more clearly in the hands of the party’s voters, and took it away from state and national party officials.
Ironically, I think most would agree that under the less democratic system, no way does Trump even get nominated. So the Trump presidency only occurs due to a high level of democracy in the strict sense.
I wonder how much it plays a role in our current highly polarized circumstances. The old smoke filled rooms way of choosing nominees had bad consequences, but so does the newer more democratic way, considering that the people are more likely to vote for someone who promises them each $1,000 and a pony without raising taxes than for someone who promises to raise the cost of fossil fuels to their true-cost levels to combat climate change.
If the election processes were better designed, I wouldn’t care how parties select their candidates.
The USA a democracy? Russia is a democracy, Iran is a democracy, North Korea is not anly a democracy, but a *popular *one! Democracy is not the relevant thing to have, the Rule of Law is, democracy is a means to that end or it becomes totally hollow and meaningless. So, the battle was lost long ago.
No, you are no longer a *functioning *democracy as you no longer enjoy the Rule of Law. Sorry. It was nice while the pretence of this not being so could he held up.
Only to the extent that Manhattan lies somewhere in the middle between Queens and Los Angeles.
Seriously? You infodump a 448 page document and tell me “it’s all in there”? Well guess what, I actually sat down and read the whole goddamn thing (have you?) and it backed up my original statement.
IOW: an anti-Clinton media campaign was conducted; embarrassing emails were leaked; and the Democratic Party’s internal campaign strategy play book was stolen
The only other thing that was cited was that hackers attempted (and apparently had only limited success) to access local voting systems.
So no, democracy was not subverted. Republican votes were not electronically stuffed into ballet boxes. Democratic votes did not mysteriously disappear. Polling places were not shut down. Voters weren’t intimidated or worse. Election judges weren’t beaten or killed. The state and national tallies were not falsified. As far as I can tell, the Russians did nothing worse than what a disloyal whistleblower within Hillary’s campaign could have done.
I’m not defending the character of either Trump or his election managers; I think they’re sleezebags. But words mean things. Hyperbole does not serve either rational discussion or democracy.
That’s all you got out of the Mueller report? Wow. Your conclusion appears to have overlooked a fair few things beyond “nothing worse than what a disloyal whistleblower within Hillary’s campaign could have done.”
You want details? Here ya go.
p. 29 – IRA organized dozens of rallies.
p. 45 – “We think Trump has only a 25% chance of winning against Hillary… so conflict between Bernie and Hillary is interesting.”
p. 48 – Involvement of WikiLeaks and Assange in the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.
p. 50 – Details GRU efforts and successes to compromise specific state election databases. (Chilling.)
p. 51 – In November 2016, there was a successful spearphishing operation on Florida county that allowed them to gain access to one Florida county network.
p. 63 – Peter Smith claimed he was in touch with hackers who had “ties and affiliations with Russia” and that his efforts were coordinated with the Trump campaign. (Smith is also KLS Research LLC)
p. 66 – based on available information, OSC did not find coordination between Trump campaign and Russia. (But see p. 180.)
p. 69 – Cohen provided regular updates to Trump on Trump Tower Moscow deal with I. C. Expert Co. Inc. (Russian-owned real estate development company by Andrei Rozov) throughout 2015 and 2016.
p. 72 – Cohen recalls conversations with Trump that Trump believed his campaign would be a significant “infomercial” for Trump-branded properties.
November 16, 2015, email from Lana Erchova to Ivanka Trump on behalf of her then-husband, Dmitry Klokov, offering Klokov’s assistance to the Trump campaign. Email also mentions that Klokov had done “Putin’s campaigns.”
p. 73 – more efforts to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin in an effort to help Trump’s campaign.
p. 74 – Cohen himself emails Russian government’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov on January 11, 2016, in an effort to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump.
p. 75 – Cohen admits to lying to Congress about when his efforts to pursue Trump Moscow project ended and says they continued to June 2016.
p. 77 – continued efforts to set up meeting between Putin and Trump after he becomes Republican nominee by Cohen.
p. 84 – continued efforts to set up meeting between Putin and Trump by Papadopoulos.
p. 87 – Continued email exchanges in April 2016 between Mifsud, Papadopoulos and Olga Polonskaya (thought to have connections with Putin and originally mistaken by Papadopoulos as Putin’s niece) to set up meetings and a relationship between Putin and Trump.
p. 88 – Many documented contacts between Papadopoulos and varied Russian officials.
p. 89 – Papadopoulos kept campaign officials apprised of his activities, including Stephen Miller, Corey Lewendowski, Sam Clovis and Paul Manafort, throughout spring and summer of 2016.
p. 92 – handwritten Papadopoulos notes re unofficial meeting between Trump officials and Russian officials confirming his recollections.
p. 116 – see footnote 713 re Trump foreknowledge of Trump Tower meeting (he knew).
p. 122-123 – more efforts by the Trump Organization to obstruct that was also collusion, by trying to bribe Anatoli Samochornov (the Russian translator who attended June 9 2016 meeting) to tell the FBI the same thing as Veselnitskaya publicly stated. He declined, saying he did not wish to perjure himself.
p. 125 – J. D. Gordon requested change in Republican platform diluting response to Russian invasion of Ukraine.
p. 129 – Manafort involvement. (Extensive.)
p. 136 – details internal polling data regularly sent to Deripaska from Manafort.
p. 138 – details July 29, 2016, email from Kilimnik to Manafort relaying information from Yanukovich re “Black Caviar.”
p. 139 – details re meeting of August 2, 2016, Manafort passing internal polling data re “battleground” states to Kilimnik and continued “peace plan” for Russia to keep eastern Ukraine under Russian control.
p. 143 – Manafort continued meeting with Kilimnik throughout 2017 and spring 2018.
p. 146 – more Russian oligarchs seek to work with Trump at behest of Putin.
p. 147 – details re meeting in Seychelles and proposal for reconciliation between Russia and the US. All conducted during the transition period of November, December 2016 and January 2017. Copies of the proposal were provided to Kushner, Bannon and Tillerson.
p. 148 – details relationship between Russia, Saudi Arabia and proposed relationship with incoming Trump administration.
p. 149 – Erik Prince made recommendations for national security positions within the incoming Trump administration.
p. 149 – After Clinton conceded the election, someone contacted Kirill Dmitriev to say, “Putin has won.” (Dmitriev was appointed to run the Russian Direct Investment Fund and refers to Putin as his boss.)
p. 156 – Erik Prince/Steve Bannon obstruction by deleting all text messages relating to their communications taking place prior to March 2017.
p. 158 – outlines plan for US/Russia “reconciliation,” including joint fighting of anti-terrorism, joint engaging in anti-weapons of mass destruction efforts, etc. All represented as an urgent priority for Putin.
p. 160 – details meeting between Kushner and Kisliyak on November 30, 2016 (note date). Flynn was also there.
p. 160 – Russians asking to influence US policy toward Syria, by having Russian generals brief the transition team.
p. 161 – Kushner asks Kisliyak to set up secure back channel communications at the Russian Embassy. Kisliyak is the one who rejects the idea.
p. 161 – Kushner meets with Sergey Gorkov, head of Russian-owned VEB Bank and who has a direct line to Putin, on December 13, 2016.
p. 162 – Kushner and Gorkov disagree as to whether the meeting was diplomatic or business in nature.
p. 163 – details Petr Aven’s efforts at outreach to the transition team.
p. 165 – details Putin’s continued interest in setting up a back channel with the Trump team via Aven.
p. 166 – details Carter Page contact with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich starting in December 2016.
p. 166 – In an intended email from Kilimnik to Manafort on December 8, 2016, Kilimnik states, “Carter Page is in Moscow today, sending messages he is authorized to talk to Russia on behalf of DT on a range of issues of mutal interest, including Ukraine.”
p. 167-168 – steps taken by Kushner, Flynn and others to get Russia to delay vote on Egypt’s submission of a resolution to the UN Security Council calling on Israel to cease settlement activities in Palestinian territory.
p. 168 – details Flynn discussions with Kisliyak re holding off on retaliation over Obama sanctions in response to Russian 2016 election interference.
p. 174 – begins analysis re prosecution and declination decisions of the OSC.
p. 180 – “Finally, although the evidence of contacts between Campaign officials and Russia-affiliated individuals may not have been sufficient to establish or sustain criminal charges, several U. S. persons connected to the Campaign made false statements about those contacts and took other steps to obstruct the Office’s investigation and those of Congress. …” (emphasis mine)
“As an initial matter, this Office evaluated potentially criminal conduct that involved the collective action of multiple individuals not under the rubric of “collusion,” but through the lens of conspiracy law. …”
p. 185 – details OSC reasoning on why no charges for June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
p. 193 – Papadopoulos’s false statements in January 2017 impeded the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. …
p. 194 – details Flynn lies to OSC re meeting with Kisliyak re sanctions.
So oh, yes. I read the whole report. Every word.
Volume I represents what Mueller was able to learn – but not what he wasn’t. There is much more that has not and may never come to light due to Trump’s obstruction. How much dark Russian money flowed into Republican coffers to benefit Trump? To benefit Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein? Mueller was not able to complete investigation into these matters. Think dark money might have had any impact on the outcome of 2016? Watch Bloomberg’s rise and tell me it doesn’t.
I guess we could tsk-tsk about “hyperbole” and “rational discussion,” should only knit our brows when we arrive to the point of foreign ballot-box stuffing or election judges being beaten and killed. Me, I happen to believe that by then it will be much too late.
But hey. Maybe a moderate amount of foreign interference is ok. Maybe they’ll do a better job in 2020 and we can have 4 more years of this shit.