Recently a friend of mine on the left — quite a decent fellow, too — wrote to inform me that Trump owed his election not to any actual election results or electors, but to Mother Russia. When I pointed out that any actual evidence of that appeared to be scarce, he replied:<\/p>\n
Actually, it was done by a fat kid, 300 pounds, working in his bedroom in NJ under orders from the Seth Rich who had been leaking DNC emails. D.C police continue with the cover-up, as they did in the Ping Pong, Bingo Bango pizza pedophilia ring run by Podesta and Clinton.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A tempered response! \u00a0He then threw in a link to a Washington Post<\/a> article in which, he assured me seriously, the principal three Hydra heads of our serpentine intelligence services were reported to have issued a statement to the effect that Russian election-rigging was undeniably proven<\/em>.<\/p>\n
I make a point of reading and considering articles coming from conflicting positions, since I find triangulation the best way to arrive at political events nowadays. So naturally I checked the Washington Post item. That the three top intelligence agencies had issued a joint statement showing that there was evidence that Russia had definitely manipulated the election seemed fairly significant. I tend to read pretty broadly, and that\u2019s not something I would have missed.<\/p>\n
But, looking into the actual piece, I can see why it was not widely picked up. After a good deal of prose by the reporter, suggesting<\/em> what my friend’s somewhat spittle-flecked summary asserted as fact, I finally arrived at the actual news content<\/em> of the piece, which said this:<\/p>\n
The positions of Comey and Clapper were revealed in a message that CIA Director John Brennan sent to the agency\u2019s workforce Friday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cEarlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,\u201d Brennan said, according to U.S. officials who have seen the message.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The CIA and the FBI declined to comment on Brennan\u2019s message or on the classified intelligence assessment that CIA officials shared with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, setting off a political firestorm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One notes that, first, no evidence whatever is presented in that statement. Second, what sort of \u201cinterference\u201d is meant is not defined. Third, the “scope, nature and intent” on which there is supposedly a \u201cconsensus\u201d is not detailed in any way. And finally, two of the supposed participants in that consensus have declined even to confirm that they had met. This, to put it mildly, isn\u2019t conclusive evidence of everything, and certainly not coming from an agency that has assured us repeatedly of such fantasy items as Saddam\u2019s weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n
What we do<\/em> have from DNI head James Clapper is an actual flat statement on November 17 in the Washington Times<\/a>, \u201cWe \u2018don\u2019t have good insight” into alleged Russian hacking,\u201d which doesn\u2019t suggest clear consensus on the \u201cscope, nature and intent\u201d on Russia activities, unless you think not having insight constitutes insight.<\/p>\n
As far as the FBI goes, no less than the Times<\/a> reports that “Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.”<\/p>\n
A somewhat different — and more up to date — report than the one in the Post<\/em> appeared today, December 20, by Ed Klein<\/a>, former foreign editor of Newsweek<\/em> and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine<\/em>. Writes Klein:<\/p>\n
In telephone conversations with Donald Trump, FBI Director James Comey assured the president-elect there was no credible evidence that Russia influenced the outcome of the recent U.S. presidential election by hacking the Democratic National Committee and the emails of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Comey told Trump that James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, agreed with this FBI assessment.The only member of the U.S. intelligence community who was ready to assert that the Russians sanctioned the hacking was John Brennan, the director of the CIA, according to sources who were briefed on Comey\u2019s conversations with Trump.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“And Brennan takes his marching orders from President Obama,” the sources quoted Comey as saying.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Comey’s view, the leaks to The New York Times and The Washington Post alleging that the Russians tried\u2014and perhaps even succeeded\u2014in tilting the election to Trump were a Democratic Party effort to delegitimize Trump\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
During their phone conversations, Comey informed Trump that the FBI had been alert for the past year to the danger that the Russians would try to cause mischief during the U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, whether the Russians did so remains an open question, Comey said, adding that it was just as likely that the hacking was done by people who had no direct connection to the Russian government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let us not give the Red Menace a free pass. I have no doubt whatever that Russia is constantly spying on and attempting to penetrate into US information sources. This is called \u201cintelligence-gathering,\u201d and every intelligence service in the world does it, which is why Secretaries of State don\u2019t as a rule put classified emails on private servers in their bathroom. God knows the USA continually hacks into Russian info-sources 24\/7. In an age of globally networked personal and institutional computers, this sort of behavior is simply a diplomatic given.<\/p>\n
But that Russia should use any such information as it might acquire to tweak the 2016 election seems to me problematic at best.<\/p>\n
Consider how all this looks from Putin’s perspective. \u00a0Hillary is a known quantity to the Russians, and whatever else one can say of Hillary\u2019s tenure, it certainly can’t be said to have kept Russia from expanding its power and influence profoundly under her watch, most notably in Syria and the Ukraine. \u00a0Hillary’s abysmal mishandling of classified documents was so utterly “incompetent,” to quote Comey before Congress, that it undoubtedly provided a rich source of not merely information but blackmail-ready material for Russian purposes. \u00a0Why in the world would Putin have his intelligence services\u00a0freely release<\/em> information likely to cost Hillary the election when he might instead pressure a Donna Brazile, a Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Tony Podesta, even Hillary herself into serving Russian purposes?<\/p>\n
Trump, by contrast, is the great Wild Card, whose actions Russia cannot predict, whose bumbling little hands we are constantly told are too unsteady to bear the nuclear codes, and who is on record as wanting to significantly upgrade the US military and its military technology, a race the economically pressured Putin cannot win and cannot reasonably favor. \u00a0The nothing-if-not-calculating Putin would certainly prefer a known quantity like Clinton, under whom he has flourished, than to Trump. \u00a0Why would he not prefer a Clinton under whom Russian power and influence has grown majestically, an American adversary whose intelligence security practices are slack to the point of being laughable? \u00a0How could he not regard her as by far the safer and more predictable option? Virtually every last Mainstream Media outlet did, and still does. This doesn\u2019t suggest overwhelming motivation to kick an election the other way, particularly given that Hillary went on record as calling for a military response<\/a> to any such hacking.<\/p>\n