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Every serious person who has tried to locate any evidence that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election even Trump-haters at theNew York Review of BooksandRolling Stone magazine has come away empty-handed and angry. We keep getting bald assertions, unadorned with anything resembling a fact.
But for now, lets just consider the raw plausibility of the story.
The fact-less claim is that (1) the Russians wanted Donald Trump to win; and (2) They thought they could help him win by releasing purloined emails from the Democratic National Committee showing that the Democrats were conspiring against Hillary Clintons primary opponent, Bernie Sanders.
First, why on earth would Russia prefer a loose cannon, untested president like Trump to an utterly corrupt politician, whod already shown she could be bought? The more corrupt you think Russia is, the more Putin ought toloveHillary as president.
The Russians knew Hillary was a joke from her ridiculous reset button as secretary of state. They proceeded to acquire 20 percent of Americas uranium production, under Hillarys careful management in exchange for ahalf-million-dollar speaking engagement for her husband and millions of dollarsin donations to the Clinton Foundation.
(Politifact rates this claimFALSE! LIAR, LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! because Trump referred to 20 percent of Americas uranium, not to 20 percent of Americas uraniumcapacity. This is the sort of serious reporting we get from our watchdog media.)
The last thing our enemies want is unpredictability in an American president, and Trump is nothing if not unpredictable. Actually, thats only the second-to-last thing Putin wants. Russias only export is energy: Thelastthing Putin wants is a president who vows to drill and frack, driving down the world oil price.
But lets say the Russians were morally offended by a woman who could be bought (by them) for a $500,000 speaking fee, and what they really longed for was a bellicose American president promising to put our interests first.
Why would anyone, least of all trained spies, think that it would help Trump to release emails showing the DNC had itsthumb on the scale against Bernie Sanders?
How was that supposed to work again? I forget.
Accepting everything else the most deranged Trump-hater believes, normal people lose the thread of the conspiracy at the moment when the Russians are supposed to have said to themselves, HEY, I KNOW LETS TRY THIS!
Even experts in American politics havent the first idea how to affect an election. The best minds of the GOP bet $140 million of their own money that Jeb! would be the nominee. (Maybe they should have hired Putin.)
Throughout the primaries, Democrats were openly praying that the GOP would nominate Trump. Democrats had the same hope in 1980 for Ronald Reagan. In 2008, Republicans hooted at the idea of Al Franken running for the U.S. Senate.
Days before the election, Americas premier journal of liberal opinion, The New York Times, gave Hillary a 91 percent chance of winning. The Princeton Election Consortium calculated her chances at 99 percent. The Huffington Posts polling aggregator put Hillarys odds at 98 percent.
But were supposed to believe that a country practiced in spycraft was confident that it not only knew what was likely to happen in a U.S. presidential election, but also knew how to swing it? And no one in Moscow thought to ask: What will be the predictable, certain outcome of releasing the DNCs Get Bernie emails?
The DNC leaks might have ended up being the best thing that ever happened to the Democrats. What if they had pulled a Torricelli, and forced Hillary to drop out, so they could run Joe Biden instead? Biden is a lot more popular than Hillary!
Isnt the more logical leaker someone within the DNC whod had enough with David Brock and Debbie Wasserman Schultz steering the party into a ditch? The actual leaker probably thought:Ive got to save the party! Shes going to destroy us!
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, as well as his associate, former British ambassador Craig Murray, both say that the DNC emails came from awhistleblowerwithin the DNC. Murray has even identified the precise location where a DNC insider passed him the emails a park near American University.
Assange may be a misguided zealot, but neither his friends nor his enemies call him a liar. His image is very nearly the opposite: a self-righteousness fanatic not a slippery con man.
Hey, did anyone else notice that last week, very quietly, every single staffer at the DNC wasfired?
The claim that Russia hacked the DNCs emails to help Trump is the sort of crackpot theory that can only be concocted after the fact.
They would prefer to say that North Korea or ISIS hacked our election and somehow installed Trump. But unfortunately, Trump has no business dealings with ISIS or the Pyongyang regime. He or people he knows have had some vague business dealings with Russia. So the left is stuck with its insane Russia conspiracy.
And now, just as the whole story is collapsing, their need is even more urgent, to distract from the Obama administrations use of national security intelligence-gathering agencies to spy on domestic enemies like Donald Trump.
Read more:
Ann Coulter: The Russian Emperor's New Clothes - Breitbart News