The 4th quarter 2016 We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now WHTM pledge drive continues! If you appreciate the blog, please donate what you can! THANKS!
I guess some congratulations are in order for one Vladimir Putin, the Russian kleptocrat who used strategic leaks of hacked information to win the election (or at least the electoral college) for Donald Trump, a thin-skinned narcissist and easily manipulable geopolitical naif.
I mean, we knew that before. But now it’s pretty much official.
The Washington Post reports:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
Yep, that’s right. The outcome of our election was essentially determined by a hostile foreign power — with the active encouragement of Donald Trump, the candidate who benefited from Russia’s interference.
It’s also now clear just how selective Russia’s use of hacked information was. The New York Times reports that the Russians also successfully hacked the Republican National Committee’s email servers, but chose not to release any of these emails.
No wonder Trump is skipping most of his intelligence briefings.
Some people are comparing these revelations to Watergate. I don’t think that’s fair. This is ten times more significant than Watergate. It calls the whole election into question.
Trump is not our President. And he should not be sworn into office unless and until we have a full public reckoning of how exactly he “won” this election.
The thing is, the U.S has been doing this for decades and foisting dictators on the most vulnerable populations in the world.
So it is hard for me to feel any sympathy right now.
This reads like a really hacky Cold War spy thriller.
And yet, this is the real life. The Republican president-elect is literally a Russian agent.
…there is not enough booze in the world for this.
What do we do? We indict Trump for treason. That’s what this is.
…Holy shit.
The number of republicans happy to hand their country over to a hostile foreign dictatorship in exchange for a few scraps of power is pretty impressive, I have to say.
For that matter, so has Russia. Bit ironic, in an ugly kind of way.
I don’t think we need, or deserve, sympathy, but we do need to figure out how to handle this situation.
I don’t know a lot about the law that might be involved here, and I imagine it makes at least some difference who knew what when. I think at this point the other branches of government need to get involved, and we need hearings on what the hell actually happened.
Can someone be impeached before assuming office?
My fear is that nothing happens.
You know what makes this even more surreal? During the Cold War, the Republicans and the far right were terrified that something like this would happen and we’d have Russian tanks on Main Street USA. (Remember Red Dawn and Amerika?) But now that it’s happened (albeit in a subtler, Manchurian Candidate fashion), they’re okay with it because the traitor is on their side.
@Rafael
I get your point. As a foreigner, it’s easy for me to say that them dumb muricans had it comin’ and they only get the bastard they deserve after inflicting that sort of shit on the rest of us. And fuck if I don’t feel the urge to.
But I have to disagree. Americans don’t have the luxury to think like that right now. The rest of the world doesn’t either. You and I, no matter where we live or what we think of America, don’t get to think like that.
If only because Trump is certainly not the end to America’s days of propping up assholes the world over. Just look at the new White House – Trump will do the same with international politics. He won’t be subtle about it and it will be blatant, obvious and scandalous… but it’ll happen nonetheless. Besides, Trump has acted as a catalyst for far-right assholes in every democratic country – and it seems Putin’s lending a hell of a hand in that effort. I’m currently watching in horror as France is gradually becoming the country I’ve always hoped it would never be again.
You don’t have to feel sorry for America. But you have to feel sorry that the past assholery is going to be repeated and magnified.
I’m trying to not make this sound too confrontational, but I’m a bit cranky because lack of sleep, please forgive that.
@KindaSortaHarmless, I’ve seen a couple of claims over the years that some intelligence agencies have had analysts read spy novels to find useful ideas for actual intelligence operations.
@Karalora, US law has a very specific definition of treason. The US Constitution states:
So it would be virtually impossible to charge Trump with treason, let alone convict him.
Clinton is ahead by over 2 percentage points in the popular vote. Comey’s shenanigans I saw estimated at cutting 1 point from her overall lead. How much from Putin’s shenanigans?
And there’s the vote suppression machine.
A treason charge won’t stick. I’m not even sure this mess invalidates the election. Sure, Russia played us, but unless someone on Trump’s team was actively colluding with them in some way, I’m not sure that means anything legally.
Wondering why the RNC denied having been hacked, though.
@ Tim Gueguen:
So he hasn’t done anything illegal in this situation? If I’m wrong, please correct.
While we have proof that Russia was supportive of Trump’s election, unless we have proof that Trump knew and had hand in this do we have any grounds to have him removed from office, let alone charge him for treason?
@tim gueguen
Bear with me while I ramble on about what you said. I’m no law expert, so I might just be spouting nonsense.
So you’re saying that Trump can’t be legally accused of treason because the Constitution defines treason in a very specific way. I’m pretty sure I got that part right. Right ?
I don’t suppose there’s anything in the legal texts preventing foreign powers from influencing elections or legislation ?
And if not, then is that not exactly what democracy was meant for ? To allow the people to consider by themselves events which do not match any legal definition but are still blatantly fucking wrong (I’d call it structural failures in the system, is that right ?) and vote against it ?
… ’cause if so, then the system itself is now preventing democracy from doing exactly what it was meant to do when the system fucks up.
I’m not American, and I’m very critical of U.S. interventionism, but I feel a great deal of sympathy for non-white people, immigrants, Muslims, LGBT people and women who’ll suffer under a Trump presidency as a result of Russian interference. All those who’ll be or have been targeted by hate crimes in Trump’s name after the election. All those who’ll spend the next 4 years (hopefully not 8) in a state of constant anxiety about their place in America. All those who’ll have human rights taken away from them, to the cheers of a significant part of the population.
They never asked for this. Most of them voted Democrat. Now they pay for the inaction of the Republicans. And people play the world’s tiniest violin at them as a result of past policies they (the underprivileged) had little or no part in.
The irony of this is extraordinary, considering previous attitudes and the Cold War.
I guess it just shows that Capitalism can make the strangest of bedfellows.
@Podkayne Lives
I think I may have an explanation for that. Their whole shtick when the hacks happened was to either blame it on the DNC for failing to protect themselves, or outright accusing them of lying about having been hacked to play victim, right ?
… I think that’s all there is to it.
Related : what’s the odds of the hacked RNC shit going live as soon as Trump pisses off Putin ? It’s probably being used as leverage against him right now. If there’s one thing I know about Putin, it’s that he has very few real allies. He doesn’t want allies. He wants to stick the pointy end of the knife where it hurts so that people will do what he tells them to.
Hey, whaddya expect from an ex-KGB strongman anyway.
I mean putin wasn’t the only one responsible by a long shot. white people in america share the responsibility with him.
Also anyone who sincerely didn’t at least suspect this needs to be taught that water is wet and that the sun shines. I’m not saying it was completely obvious, but it was a possibility since before the wikileaks emails went up.
I’d also be willing to bet that the RNC hack has some info in it that could actually remove trump from office if it goes public.
Sinkable John:
(a) Crimes committed by others than help you aren’t crimes committed by you. Example: a mafioso throws a molotov cocktail in the restaurant two doors down from yours, so now your restaurant has more patrons because the other one is shut down for a bit. You aren’t guilty of arson for that. So sure, Trump benefited, but that’s not a crime.
(b) Treason is defined as what Congress defines as treason, and the guidelines use military terms: war and enemies. Good luck convincing a GOP congress elected thanks to help from a country we’re not at war with that receiving electoral help from a country we’re not at war with is treason.
Specific crimes could stick much more easily if they’re targeted at particular individuals: Manafort, for instance, or Trump himself (I don’t get the sense that Trump is particularly popular among the GOP, whereas Pence is).
JSun:
Sure, but Trump’s twitter feed has info in it that could actually remove trump from office if it goes public.
While Trump isn’t one of the conspirators in this, there are people directly in his campaign staff who are – people who were and are in contact with him daily. Not perfect evidence of his being directly connected, but it’s enough for the trial to start (In my unprofessional, not-a-lawyer opinion)
I don’t think this will change a damn thing. It makes me sick, but it won’t.
Please, take this Internet.
Fair point. One internet cookie for you.
@numerobis
@numerobis
Well (a) was pretty much my point, sorry that was unclear (lack of sleep makes me cranky for maybe three hours and I’ve been awake for longer, but it makes me unintelligible for the whole day – a very long day).
I’m not talking about treason though. Even if you could prove that Trump actually asked Russia to intervene (okay, he actually did, in his usual dog-whistling ways) it still wouldn’t count as treason.
But it’s pretty clear that there are serious shortcomings in the law, if a foreign power can do that with impunity for both themselves and “their” candidate. That’s what I meant when I said that democracy is supposed to prevent that.
Gonna put it in terms I’m more comfortable with, might make it clearer. See the law and Constitution (what I referred to as system) as a program – the people are supposed to be the programmer. Democracy is the interface. And right now there’s a hell of a bug and it’s making the whole thing malfunction. You might even say it’s a security breach, since the program has been hacked (this time figuratively) by an exterior agent. So the people, as a programmer, are supposed to either correct the bug at best, or at the very least bypass it (say, by rebooting). ‘cept the program and its interface don’t actually let the programmer do that, at least not before the next update, in four years.
See what I mean ? There’s something seriously wrong with american democracy – actually, democracy the world over.