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Say that there IS evidence that Russia tried to interfere with our elections? How do we know that they tried to help Trump? Perhaps they tried to help Hillary win in exchange for loads of uranium. However, their plans didn't work and Hillary lost.
What was Hillary doing on that server? Was she trying to collude with Russia? The Russians tried to go for BOTH the RNC and the DNC stuff. Obama planned that Hillary would win and so kept quiet what he knew about Russia's involvement in the elections. He, of course, used the excuse of the collusion to spy on Trump in the event anyone ever asked, so that they could say Trump tried to cheat and lost and that they were thus justified in spying on him.
However, when it was clear Hillary was going to lose, and the Jill Stein recount didn't work (BTW, even Stein admits that the Russia/Trump collusion story is bogus), Obama decided to declare elections critical infrastructure so that the feds would have more power over the elections and the states less (so the Dems could rig the game later when they got back in) and began working with the Deep State to go after Trump.
Comey covered for Hillary but the Dems blamed him to try and make it look like he was the bad guy. However, when Trump suspected Comey was a rat and canned him, the Dems tried to go after Trump for Russian collusion (which didn't exist.) and kept up the Russian crap to try and take down as many members of Team Trump as they could in hopes of weakening Trump's agenda. One of their larger targets being anti-H1B and closed borders Jeff Sessions, who is even stronger on the issues than Trump himself.
The Republican Establishment doesn't want the Dems in trouble (as then they'd get dumped by a third party if the Dems fell) and they hate Trump so they aren't defending him just like they left conservatives out to dry after the Lerner targeting.
Why shouldn't Russia try to help who they want and other countries did the same....there is nothing new in countries trying to get someone elected that would be good for them. All Manner of countries were giving money to Hillary with the understanding she would throw some US taxpayer money their way after she was elected.
We do, pretty much know one thing, whether they tried to swing the election they didn't stand and watch votes come in. They had no influence what so ever on the outcome. Now, can we just get down to real business and solve some to the real problems facing our country.
There is evidence they interfered in the election. There's direct intelligence Putin personally ordered an influence campaign against Clinton and in favor of Trump. Putin hated Hillary as much as the GOP did (she criticized the Russian elections in 2012). Trump's had a positive relationship with Russia for years, investing money that Putin's government needs. He held his pageant there. He's said nice things about Putin. It's clear that Putin was betting on Trump being more agreeable to Putin's revanchist desires than a Clinton presidency would be.
As that article says, Obama (as did nearly everyone) felt that Clinton would win, and he feared the appearance of trying to influence the election. An attempt at a bi-partisan show of strength against Putin was thrown back in his face by McConnell. Obama didn't spy on Trump; quit repeating that lie. Obama also feared what Russia could do, as the Russians had already proven they could hack into state voter systems. They changed voter data in California and stole voter information, including social security numbers, from Illinois. Russian hackers had also attempted to access voting systems in half the states. That article talks about how the Obama administration was prepared for the worst case scenario on election day. (However, it does not seem that the Russians actually managed to change any votes. Their major goal was to made us doubt our democratic institutions).
For further reading, here's a quite long and in-depth New Yorker article called Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War that discusses a lot of this.
You're right that Russia hacked both campaigns, but only released information from the Clinton hack. Here's an article analyzing Russian involvement in the GOP primary. And here's another article about the Russian online campaign to help Trump, partly written by former FBI agent Clint Watts, who had testified before Congress on this topic a few months ago (he's the "follow the trail of the dead Russians" guy). And a bit longer piece about how Russia conducted its social media war.
Honestly, when people express doubt about what Russia did, it feels as if after 9/11 people had said, "How do we know Osama bin Laden was behind it? A lot of people could have hacked those airlines. Maybe it was China. Maybe it was someone upset about losing money in the tech bubble crash and wanted to get back at Wall Street. And it's possible that the hijackers posed as Islamic terrorists. When have Muslim terrorists ever attacked American interests, anyway?"
Russia hacked the campaigns in 2008, they hacked the State Department in 2014, targeted the Joint Chiefs in 2015, and they hacked the DNC in 2015-2016. They were involved in influencing the Brexit vote, tried to interfere in France, and are targeting the German elections. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and hackers took out the Ukraine power grid last year. And now Russian hackers are going after our nuclear power plants. He's not going to stop. He was successful in his American influence campaign in 2016, and there's been no big pushback from the Trump administration on this. (I'm assuming the FBI, NSA, CIA, and DNI are working to protect from future hacks, even if Trump pretends not to believe the intelligence reports). And Putin isn't really a Trump supporter - he's a Putin supporter. I think the GOP is taking a "so what?" attitude because Putin helped them get what they wanted, but there's no guarantee Putin would support Trump again, or the GOP. He wants to deepen political fractures and weaken our democratic institutions and promote Russia's interests. He could very well switch to supporting the DNC in the next election, then switch back to the RNC - or decided to take out our power grids, and just enjoy the chaos. It's why we have to stop Putin, the same way we need to stop ISIS or any other threat to our national security.
I wonder if Russians possibly could have been play each side against each other. Interfering with each side enough to be each chasing their tales in a circle until neither side can function. Maybe, it's a thought. That seems like a sneeky spy like thing to do.
Although DT I am sure has been financed up to the eyeballs by Russia, that is why he hasn't let us see his taxes. Clinton, I don't know, never liked her much and definitely had issues with the Clintons "charity" foundation..... Don't really understand the Uranium thing, I thought that was debunked, I don't know that.
Running out of power have to go, goodnight.
Oh yeah, why does Trump like Putin solo much, such a great guy I'll tell you.... Are you kidding me.
We do, pretty much know one thing, whether they tried to swing the election they didn't stand and watch votes come in. They had no influence what so ever on the outcome. Now, can we just get down to real business and solve some to the real problems facing our country.
The problem I have is that all of our news about Russian hacking comes from the news and not from government. Our government tells us nothing because they have this information hidden behind the term 'Classified'. If it were a court of law and we tried to present hearsay/unidentified testimony from some news organization; they would laugh us out of court. We have been down this path before with WMD's and bin Laden hiding in Afghanistan and we saw where it took us - thousands of Americans dead and more problems for many years to come. Either our Government has to declassify all pertinent information and let us check their sources or they have to shut up about all of this speculation - they have no choice if they want credibility.
I also have this gut feeling that, even if Russia did try to influence the election, that they did nothing different that what we have been guilty of many times in the past. If we have problems with our voting machines, like the ones we bought from a Soros controlled company; then it might be time to go back to paper ballots!
Has Trump done anything that Putin is happy about?
No President has been tougher on Russia since Reagan.
Yet Putin owns Trump, right?
Vlad already bought the Clintons, why would he want Trump?
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