How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President

[Rob L 3,811]

Evidence suggests that a Russian intelligence group was the source of the most recent Wikileaks intel dump, which was aimed to influence the US ELECTION

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/

[unsmiley 111]

"Independent" analysis my rear.

Hillary supporters will do anything, including planting these stupid red herrings, to divert attention from the real story: the actual content of those damning emails. Amazing.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Why would the Russians want Trump when they can so easily steal Hillary’s email?

[Rob L 3,811]

Why would the Russians want Trump when they can so easily steal Hillarys email?

I don't know about the Russian people, but Putin would love it. The connections between the two are well documented including Paul Manafort running campaigns for both.

[Rob L 3,811]

Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Why would the Russians want Trump when they can so easily steal Hillarys email?

OR buy her like the Chinese

[Sousuke 1,214]

[Rob L 3,811]

Why Some Leftists Are Defending Donald Trump’s Ties to Russia

The cultivation of friendly candidates in elections in other countries, and efforts to intervene on their behalf, is a staple of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. Putin’s Russia has been proven or credibly alleged to have boosted friendly candidates in France, Germany, Austria, and, most successfully, in the election of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Something like this seems to be happening in the American presidential election now. Several weeks ago, Franklin Foer wrote in Slate about the web of suspicious financial ties connecting Trump and his leading Russia adviser to the Kremlin. The story attracted little attention — maybe it was too far-fetched, or maybe the daily stream of cable-news ticker-friendly public outrages spewed out by Trump, which required no inference, blotted out a much deeper one that lay half-buried. But recent events have propelled the story into the presidential campaign.

First, in Cleveland, Trump’s campaign, which had generally steered clear of platform disputes, threw around its weight to block a plank endorsing defensive military aide to Ukraine. Next, Trump shocked the foreign-policy Establishment by telling reporters that, contrary to decades of American policy, he might renege on America’s commitment to defend NATO allies in the event of a Russian invasion. And then, last weekend, emails from the Democratic National Committee that had been hacked by Russia appeared on WikiLeaks. The emails, which showed staffers pulling for Hillary Clinton despite the organization’s professed neutrality, created a rift between bitter supporters of Bernie Sanders and the party Establishment at a time when it was trying to tamp down discord in the service of concord. Clinton’s campaign manager is now stating openly that Russia is trying to help Trump.

And oddly enough, the drama is having a second-order effect that is more profound than the direct hit from the email story. It is prying open a deep, decades-old ideological wedge between liberals and the left at just the moment when the two wings were seeking to form a united front against Trump.

What is the relationship between Trump and Russia? That Russia is pulling for Trump is at this point beyond any dispute. The Kremlin’s English-language propaganda channel RT and Russia’s army of Twitter trolls, as well as Russia’s internal propaganda, have all thrown themselves behind the Republican candidate. A series of reports (here, here, and here) have shown that Russia backed the operation to hack the DNC. Adrien Chen, who reported last summer on Russia’s army of internet trolls that spreads disinformation abroad, noted in December that the trolls he was tracking had begun posing as pro-Trump conservatives.

It is the other half of the equation that is more opaque. Putin is helping Trump, but what exactly is Trump giving him in return? As Foer notes, Trump’s habit of refusing to pay back people who loan him money means regular American banks won’t lend him money anymore, making him dependent on unusual sources of financing. He has cultivated deeppersonal and financial ties with Russia — and to do major business with Russia, unlike a reasonably free economy, is to do business with its ruling claque. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, helped orchestratePutin’s intervention in Ukraine. His Russia adviser Carter Page has deep ties to Russia and owns stock in Gazprom, the state-controlled firm that is a major source of the Kremlin’s financial and economic power. Michael Flynn, another Trump adviser, appears regularly on RT and refused to answer questions about whether he is paid to do so. Trump and Putin have exchanged lavish compliments.

Trump’s own financial ties to Russia are completely non-transparent and will remain so as long as he refuses to release his tax returns. With a normal candidate, the Russia connection would amount to a massive, disqualifying scandal. At minimum, the nominee would face overwhelming pressure to release his tax return — a standard requirement even without grounds for suspicion — to prove he is not getting paid by a hostile foreign power. To be clear, it is pretty improbable that Trump is literally working for Putin. But this hardly settles the question. First, for a risk as consequential as the willful penetration of the American government by a hostile power, “pretty improbable” is not improbable enough. Second, the more likely explanation for the web of ties between Trump and Putin is still fairly damning. You have a candidate with a long record of admiring despots in general and the Russian despot in particular, surrounded by advisers in his pay, and who is flamboyantly ignorant of policy. Given these circumstances, it would be hard to imagine how Trump could form views on Russia without Putin’s influence.

But the accusation that Trump’s relationship with Russia reeks of impropriety, in the media now by Clinton, has provoked a furious counterattack on the left. Even the indisputable notion that Russia is trying to help Trump (far from the more explosive charge that Trump is trying to help Russia) has been assailed on the left as “McCarthyism” by figures like Katrina vandenHeuvel, Glenn Greenwald, and many other

[Dashinka 23,235]

So now it is a "vast Russian conspiracy"?

[Rob L 3,811]

So now it is a "vast Russian conspiracy"?

Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine

The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has been dismissive of calls for supporting the Ukraine government as it fights an ongoing Russian-led intervention. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked as a lobbyist for the Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for more than a decade.

Still, Republican delegates at last week’s national security committee platform meeting in Cleveland were surprised when the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events to make sure that the GOP would not pledge to give Ukraine the weapons it has been asking for from the United States.

Trump staffers in the room, who are not delegates but are there to oversee the process, intervened. By working with pro-Trump delegates, they were able to get the issue tabled while they devised a method to roll back the language.

On the sideline, Denman tried to persuade the Trump staffers not to change the language, but failed. “I was troubled when they put aside my amendment and then watered it down,” Denman told me. “I said, ‘What is your problem with a country that wants to remain free?’ It seems like a simple thing.”

Finally, Trump staffers wrote an amendment to Denman’s amendment that stripped out the platform’s call for “providing lethal defensive weapons” and replaced it with softer language calling for “appropriate assistance.”

That amendment was voted on and passed. When the Republican Party releases its platform Monday, the official Republican party position on arms for Ukraine will be at odds with almost all the party’s national security leaders.

“This is another example of Trump being out of step with GOP leadership and the mainstream in a way that shows he would be dangerous for America and the world,” said Rachel Hoff, another platform committee member who was in the room.

Of course, Trump is not the only politician to oppose sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. President Obama decided not to authorize it, despite recommendations to do so from his top Europe officials in the State Department and the military. The United States has provided Ukraine with non-lethal equipment and aid.

Trump’s view of Russia has always been friendlier than most Republicans. He’s said he would “get along very well” with Vladimir Putin and called it a “great honor” when Putin praised him. Trump has done a lot of business in Russia and has been traveling there since 1987. Last August, he said of Ukraine joining NATO, “I wouldn’t care.” He traveled there in September, and he told Ukrainians their war is “really a problem that affects Europe a lot more than it affects us.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html

[yuna628 9,528]

Russia's deep involvement in the whole thing is true, but the problem is will anyone be paying attention to care? It's not just an excuse coming from the DNC in an effort to shift blame, it's something that has real supportive evidence, and it's even being discussed with alarmed concern in conservative circles.

[Rob L 3,811]

Russia's deep involvement in the whole thing is true, but the problem is will anyone be paying attention to care? It's not just an excuse coming from the DNC in an effort to shift blame, it's something that has real supportive evidence, and it's even being discussed with alarmed concern in conservative circles.

What? don't be so alarmist ...this is laughable according the the trumpetiers. Make Russia Great Again!

Putin is surely backing Trump, whether or not Russia was behind DNC hack

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/25/russia-dnc-hack-vladimir-putin-donald-trump-us-election

Allegations that the Kremlin is responsible for the damaging hack of Democratic National Committee emails may never be conclusively proven, but there is plenty of evidence suggesting that Donald Trump’s presidential bid can count on at least some backing from Moscow.

That support is sometimes more than tacit: in December, months before Trump secured the Republican nomination, Putin called him “a colorful person, talented, without any doubt” and said: “It’s not our business to decide his merits, that’s for US voters, but he is absolutely the leader in the presidential race.” The Russian president later appeared to qualify his remark.

In turn, Trump has described Vladimir Putin approvingly as a “strong leader” with whom he would have “a very good relationship”.

Who supports Donald Trump? The new Republican center of gravity

Read more

Last week, Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee,tweeted: “Clinton’s credo is to strengthen US alliances against Russia; Trump’s credo is only to respond to real threats. Aggressive banality versus common sense.”

Russian state media has largely been favourable to Trump, who has historically relied on Russian money for financing his property deals – a fact admitted by one of his sons, Donald Jr. Furthermore, the Republican candidate has two men in his immediate circle with a record of promoting Russian causes.

Paul Manafort, the campaign chair formerly worked as an adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukrainian president and a Vladimir Putin ally ousted in a revolution two years who is now living in exile in Russia. And Carter Page, aTrump foreign policy adviser with a long history of financial ties to the Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Meanwhile, some of Trump’s most striking policy pronouncements were very much in Russian interests, most spectacularly his questioning of Nato’s basic tenet, that an attack on one member state would be treated as an attack on all, and his campaign’s determination to strip language on supporting Ukraine against Russian intervention from the Republican manifesto.

The Clinton camp has cried foul, with the campaign manager, Robby Mook, arguing on the ABC current affairs programme This Week that the Russians had leaked the DNC emails to help Trump, suggesting that the nominee’s policy positions gave Moscow ample incentive.

[Rob L 3,811]

Inside Trump’s financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

"Independent" analysis my rear.

Hillary supporters will do anything, including planting these stupid red herrings, to divert attention from the real story: the actual content of those damning emails. Amazing.

I am really shocked she has not blamed it on a vast right wing Russian conspiracy. Seriously what kind of kool aid drinker would belive anything she says

[Rob L 3,811]

I am really shocked she has not blamed it on a vast right wing Russian conspiracy. Seriously what kind of kool aid drinker would belive anything she says

I am not taking that position...I am just connecting the dots as spelled out in news reports.

Who would benefit from a release of DNC documents on this day? This is the most obvious..The Trump campaign benefits the most.

If there were no agenda then why not release them when stolen?

Who performed the breach and stole the data?

What money has been loaned to Trump projects from Russia and Kazakhstan?

Why did Trump representatives only intervene with one and only one RNC platform item, the amendment that called for sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine.

What will be the Trump policy on NATO? He is apparently is putting new conditions on the alliance.

What are the connections between Manafort and Putin? We know that Manafort was on Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's payroll for more than a decade.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Rob L