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Russian Interference in the Election: A Media Hoax?

By Stephen J. Sniegoski • Unz Review • January 6, 2017

The mainstream media’s narrative that the Russian government interfered with the United States election, and that this interference invalidated, or at least tainted, Trump’s election has culminated in President Obama taking a series of measures against Russia, which consist of: imposing sanctions on the GRU and the FSB (the two major Russian intelligence organizations), four officers of the GRU, and two Russian individuals who allegedly used “cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information;” expelling 35 diplomats and intelligence officials; and closing two Russian compounds in Maryland’s Eastern Shore and Long Island, New York. These actions were said to have been taken not only because of Russian interference in the election but for a number of other instances of Russian malfeasance that go back in time and are unrelated to alleged election interference. And there was no evidence provided that showed, or even claimed to show, that the particular individuals and entities covered by these measures had anything to do with the alleged election interference.[1]

Like other common memes—such as anti-Semitism, racism, and sexism—used to silence debate, the exact meaning of Russian interference in the election is unclear—and Obama’s inclusion of a number of extraneous issues in his explanation for taking retaliatory action against Russia muddles the issue even more. The reference to Russian interference in the election includes a composite of alleged Russian misdeeds—“fake news,” computer hacking, and manipulating voting machines [2] –which are usually lumped together but are actually quite different and should be analyzed separately since the combination approach only serves to obfuscate the issue. Of course—and this probably would not be shocking to most readers of this essay—many of those who promote the idea of Russian culpability are not really concerned about pursuing a Socratic search for truth but instead want to anathematize Putin’s Russia and/or delegitimize Trump’s election victory.

First, let me take care of the most extreme claim—that Russian hackers manipulated election results to make Trump president. This would be a nearly impossible task since voting machines are not attached to the Internet, and it was never pointed out how the Russians could do this on any significant scale.[3] Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton was urged by “a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers” to demand a recount in three states—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—in which Clinton seemed to be slightly ahead in pre-election polls but which were won by Trump by narrow margins. The group claimed to have statistical evidence that the vote had been altered.[4] The basis of this claim, however, was quite flimsy since it simply rested on an analysis that showed that in Wisconsin counties with electronic voting machines, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes than in counties with paper ballots or optical scanners. It was then assumed that the same thing could have occurred in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

There was a recount in Wisconsin in which Trump increased his victory margin by 131 votes; a total of 2.976 million ballots were cast. The recount was requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein who covered the estimated $3.5 million cost of the endeavor.[5] Similar efforts by Stein to get recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania were blocked in the state courts because of her lack of standing by the laws of those states—not having any chance of winning herself, she could not be considered an “aggrieved party.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not make official efforts to get recounts in any states. With Trump’s victory in Wisconsin surviving the recount, he had garnered a majority of the electoral votes, which would make him President unless there were a far higher number of faithless electors than turned out to be the case. Nonetheless, half of Clinton’s voters still think Russia hacked the election day voting.[6]

Now to consider the ramifications of Russia’s hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and the reception and release to the public of this Russian-hacked information by WikiLeaks. While this is assumed to be incontestably true by the mainstream media, neither one of these allegations is rock solid at the moment. The alleged consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies is that there is sufficient evidence that Russia hacked the aforementioned emails, but the evidence for this has not been made available to the public nor is there proof that WikiLeaks relied on emails derived from Russian hacks. Given the fact that America’s intelligence agencies are not noted for being honest with the public, one would think that the mainstream media would give some attention to the critics of the dominant narrative.

Reacting to these allegations, WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, claims that his organization did not release any information provided to it by Russia or a Russian proxy. And Assange does have a vested interest in being truthful in order to maintain WikiLeaks’ credibility, which has so far been impeccable. Confirming Assange’s contention is Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of Assange, though not an official member of the WikiLeaks staff. Murray stated: “As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks.” He goes on to claim: “Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.” Murray alleges that the two sets of emails—from the DNC and from Podesta–came from American insiders but from different sources.[7]

Obviously, the security agencies should provide the public with detailed evidence and describe the actual sources. As Pat Buchanan suggests: “The CIA director and his deputies should be made to testify under oath, not only as to what they know about Russia’s role in the WikiLeaks email dumps but also about who inside the agency is behind the leaks to The Washington Post designed to put a cloud over the Trump presidency before it begins.”[8]

Now it should be pointed out that the actual content of the emails released by WikiLeaks, which the U.S. claims to have been obtained by Russian hacking, has not been falsified. The information harmful to Hillary Clinton included the DNC’s behind-the-scenes support for her over Bernie Sanders (which included then DNC chair Donna Brazile’s feeding answers to Clinton before the latter’s debate with Bernie Sanders); Clinton’s unpublicized paid speeches—on foreign policy and the economy– to wealthy business executives and bankers revealing views diametrically opposed to her campaign positions; the collusion of mainstream media reporters with the DNC. For example, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank requested and got the DNC to do the research for a negative column he wrote about Trump.

If the WikiLeaks information were completely fallacious, it would not have been derived from hacking or even from leaks, but simply fabricated. Nonetheless, this defense is being made. The logical form of this argument is that hacking took place but that the released emails were doctored to make them damaging. But this is based on the fact that it is possible to doctor emails, rather than any evidence that the WikiLeaks’ emails were altered. The assumption being made was that Russia was capable of doctoring the emails, therefore, the emails must be doctored. For example, Jamie Winterton, director of strategy for Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative, was quoted as saying: “I would be shocked if the emails weren’t altered,” and went on to say that Russia was well-known to have used this technique in the past.^ix Similarly, Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin asserted: “We are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by Julian Assange, who has made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton.” He referred to doctored emails that supposedly appeared on websites linked to Russian intelligence as proof that “documents can be faked as part of a sophisticated Russian misinformation campaign,” although Caplin did not say that the emails concerning Clinton’s speeches had been faked.^x According to James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the spreading of false information by intelligence services “is a technique that goes back to Tsarist times.” Among his examples, he referred to the Soviet-spread rumor that the U.S. government developed the AIDS virus. Needless to say, this, too, had nothing to do with WikiLeaks much less the emails it released on Clinton and the DNC.[11]

MSNBC’s terrorist analyst and a former intelligence officer, Malcolm Nance, tweeted a message, shortly after WikiLeaks’ October release of some of Podesta’s emails, that these emails were “riddled with obvious forgeries,” without ever providing evidence.[12] If any emails released by WikiLeaks were “obvious forgeries,” it would seem quite easy for U.S. intelligence agencies to point this out without using any secret, super-high tech methods, and thus substantiate the case being made.

Interestingly, Nance was also quoted as taking the opposite position: “We have no way of knowing whether this is real or not unless Hillary Clinton goes through everything they’ve said and comes out and says it cross-correlates and this is true.”[13] Here, Nance seems to be saying that WikiLeaks’ could only be considered accurate if Hillary would show this to be the case. Since Hillary is not going to indict herself, this is not going to happen. However, the burden of proof should be on those who claim that the emails were altered to point out the discrepancies between the emails released by WikiLeaks and the DNC’s and Podesta’s actual emails. It would not be necessary to go through the whole tranche but simply focus on the detrimental emails. If this is not done, then claims that the WikiLeaks provides specious information should be dropped. So far, however, there seems to be little effort to show that the damaging information was untrue.[14]

Actually, it seems that much of the hostility to the WikiLeaks’ information has little to do with it being false but rather that the emails were pilfered and made public. Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California, who serves as the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Jane Harman, who is currently the president of the Wilson Center and a former ranking Democratic member of the same House committee state: “Russia’s theft and strategic leaking of emails and documents from the Democratic Party and other officials present a challenge to the U.S. political system unlike anything we’ve experienced.”[15] Note that these writers charge Russia not only with illicitly obtaining the emails but also of “strategic leaking,” which was obviously the work of WikiLeaks, and for which no evidence whatsoever exists that Russia determined when the materials would be leaked.

The New York Times Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes that “[t]he pro-Putin tilt of Mr. Trump and his advisers was obvious months before the election . . . . By midsummer the close relationship between WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence was also obvious, as was the site’s growing alignment with white nationalists.” Krugman goes on to blame the mainstream media for giving attention to WikiLeaks. “Leaked emails, which everyone knew were probably the product of Russian hacking, were breathlessly reported as shocking revelations, even when they mostly revealed nothing more than the fact that Democrats are people.”[16] However, if nothing harmful was revealed, it is hard to maintain that Russian hacking had a significant effect on the election. If harm were done to the Democrats, it was presumably caused by the media, which falsely implied that serious revelations were being made by WikiLeaks.

Referring to Putin and the Russian hackers, Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson contends: “Their hacking — as interpreted by both the CIA and the FBI — qualifies as state-sponsored aggression. It does jeopardize our way of life. It undermines the integrity of our political institutions and popular faith in them. More than this, it warns us that our physical safety and security are at risk. Hostile hackers can hijack power grids, communication networks, transportation systems and much more.”[17] Even criticizing the position of the CIA—an institution American liberals, not too long ago, looked upon as a force for evil–is now considered a threat to American democracy. As establishment liberal E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post pontificates: “That Trump would happily trash our own CIA to get Putin off the hook is disturbing enough . . . . That he would ignore the risks our intelligence agents take on so many fronts to protect us is outrageous.[18]

Michael Daly of the liberal millennials–oriented Daily Beast writes: “Russians went from simply gathering our secrets to then making them public in such a way as to influence American public opinion and therefore the course of our democracy. Putin must marvel at the fervently patriotic, flag-waving Americans who shrug at the near certainty that a foreign power had subverted the electoral process that is at the heart of America’s true greatness.”[19]

It is not apparent how receiving accurate information regarding political issues—which is what WikiLeaks seems to have provided—could really have a negative impact on American democracy; rather it would seem that it would actually improve democracy. The purpose of Voice of America is supposed to be to provide such information to foreign countries and especially to those where the governments prevent the facts from reaching their inhabitants. The idea is that people in foreign countries should know the truth about their own government and about other governments, as well.

The Washington Post was enraged when, in 2015, Russia shut down the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), relying on a law that “bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’” The Washington Post wrote: “The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts.”[20] Presumably, such things as “transparency in public affairs,” fighting corruption, and “freedom of information,” are vital for creating a “healthy democracy” in Russia when promoted by a foreign organization but are a grave danger to democracy if a foreign entity should try to do the same thing in the United States.

The mainstream media has acted as if Russian efforts to influence American policy are something novel, that this had never happened to the U.S. before. And “policy” is used here rather than “election” because affecting policy is apparently Putin’s motive, not simply putting Trump in the White House with U.S. policy toward Russian unchanged. It is quite understandable that Putin would view Trump as a better President from the standpoint of Russian interests than Hillary Clinton since Trump advocated improving relations with Russia while Clinton was oriented toward exacerbating them.

While the mainstream media implies that what Russia was allegedly attempting to do had never happened before, foreign countries had actually tried to shape American policies since the George Washington administration [21] when the ambassador from revolutionary France, popularly known as Citizen Genet, came to the United States in 1793 and sought to generate popular support to get the United States to modify its strict neutrality policy to one that would be helpful to France in its war with Great Britain. Genet even commissioned privateers to attack British shipping. Ultimately, however, President Washington and his Cabinet, angered by Genet’s activities that violated American sovereignty, demanded his recall. Genet simultaneously fell from favor in France as more radical Jacobins led by Robespierre took power and fearing he might face the guillotine if he returned to France, Genet requested and received asylum in the United States.

In 1867-1868, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. resorted to bribing lobbyists, newspapers, and members of Congress in order to make sure that the U.S. Congress would provide the funds for the treaty already signed by Secretary of State Seward (and approved by the Senate) to purchase Alaska.

In World War I both Germany and England were relying heavily on propaganda in the U.S.—the British goal to get the U.S. into the war on its side; the German goal to keep the U.S. out of the war. In 1917, Britain Illicitly intercepted and decoded what became known as the Zimmerman Telegram, which was a message from the German foreign ministry to its ambassador in Mexico instructing him to inform the Mexican government that Germany would, if the United States joined the war against it, support a Mexican effort to regain its former territory taken by the United States (though technically purchased) as a result of the Mexican-American War.[22] After Britain turned the information over to the U.S. government, the publication of the telegram in March 1917 may have played a supporting role in America’s entrance into World War I in April 1917.

In World War II, British intelligence closely cooperated with the Roosevelt administration and the American interventionists—actually setting up pro-interventionist front groups–and engaged in efforts to destroy the non-interventionists.[23] Soviet agents were also trying to shape American foreign policy during World War II and its aftermath in order to advance the interests of Stalinist Russia.[24] And Israel (and the Zionist agency before Israel’s founding) and its American supporters have played a role in shaping America’s policy in the Middle East policy since World War I.[25]

Finally, let us explore the reasons for Obama’s retaliation against the alleged Russian interference in the election, which included activities—mostly, but not only, involving spying—that had been going on for years. An obvious question is: why didn’t Obama take action earlier?

It should be pointed out that it is commonplace for spies to pose as diplomats. And it is likewise commonplace that a host country does nothing to stop the spying unless it goes too far or if the host country wants to send a message that it is concerned about some other matter and does so by expelling officials for spying who were not necessarily involved in the issue of concern. Obama’s expulsion edict fit the second category and was meant to show the U.S. government’s ire regarding the alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election.[26] Therefore, Obama’s retaliation against individuals and entities not involved in the matter of concern was not unconventional and if there had not been any alleged interference in the U.S. election, they likely would have been left alone.

Furthermore, it would appear that Obama chose to take action for political reasons: in order to appeal to the Democratic base and the mainstream media, afflicted as those two groups are by Trump Derangement Syndrome,[27] and also to hardline opponents of Russia who loom large in the Republican Party and have become a significant force among the Democratic elite (e.g. Brookings Institution).

In making major foreign policy decisions, Obama’s modus operandi has often been one of reacting to pressure—usually, but not always, from elite opinion—which has caused him to take positions contrary to his own, often more non-interventionist and pacific, inclination. This seems to have been the case regarding Obama’s policy toward Libya, Syria, Israel (his obeisance to the Israel Lobby until the very end of his presidency), and even Russia, where he initially sought a “reset” to achieve friendlier relations.

Although it has been claimed that Obama had entertained issuing punitive measures against Russia before the election, but opted against this to avoid possible Russian retaliation that could affect the voting, it is not apparent that Obama would have taken comparable retaliatory action if Clinton had won a clear-cut electoral victory.[28] While Republican hardliners, such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham, might have wanted such action, the Democrats would be satisfied with their victory, and Clinton and her foreign policy advisers, even though they might be anti-Putin, would not want their hands tied by such measures. While Obama is not a fan of Hillary Clinton, he did want her to be his successor, since that would have made him look good; there would have been no reason to antagonize her, her supporters, or the Democratic Party elite.

By penalizing Russia, Obama makes it difficult for President Trump to establish a more cordial relationship with Russia. There is extensive support in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans for taking strong action against Russia. As the title of an article in Roll Call, which focuses on the activities of the U.S. Congress , puts it: “Obama’s Russia Sanctions Put Trump, Hill GOP on Collision Course.” The author of this article, John T. Bennett, opines that Trump’s opposition to Obama’s retaliation against Russia “will immediately pit him against the hawkish wing of the Republican party.”[29]

While Trump could overturn Obama’s anti-Russian measures, which are based on an executive order, his doing so would almost certainly be countered by legislation put forth by Democrats and some Republicans—the latter led by McCain and Graham, who have already said that they will introduce Russian sanction legislation. In the past few years, an overwhelming majority in Congress has voted for sanctions legislation against Russia, which makes it likely that there would be a veto-proof majority to stymie Trump on this issue.[30]

To conclude, the Russian interference narrative did not serve to prevent Trump from becoming president but it does seem that it will cause serious problems for his presidency and for American foreign relations as well, as America will drift further into Cold War II, which is something that Trump, if not facing obstruction, could have possibly prevented.

January 6, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | CIA, DNC, Hillary Clinton, National Security Agency, Obama, United States | 2 Comments