As you’ve probably heard, a number of Russians have been indicted on a variety of charges relating to the 2016 election. Included in the announcement was a statement to the effect that no evidence has been found of Americans knowingly working with them in their activities.
The interpretations of this are now flying fast and thick with Trump supporters saying it’s a complete exoneration and Trump opponents saying it puts the lie to Trump’s denials of Russian interference in the election.
I continue to be satisfied to allow the Mueller investigation to work its way through. I should also emphasize that I do not recall ever denying that the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere in our elections just as we interfere or attempt to interfere in theirs and in elections of many other countries. I have said that I don’t believe that Russian hacking resulted in any fraudulent reporting of votes.
How should I interpret the most recent news on this subject?
The indictment does seem to confirm one thing that has long been my theory about what the goal of any Russian meddling in the election might have been. Namely, that it wasn’t to “help” Trump, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, or anyone else, or to “hurt” Hillary Clinton,” even though much of the effort was to that effect.
Instead,, the goal was to spread chaos and uncertainty by exploiting the hyperpartisan atmosphere of American politics. In that respect, the operation has quite arguably succeeded masterfully.
This doesn’t preclude the possibility of collusion, either knowing or unknowing, by people tied to a specific campaign nor does it preclude any possible effort to obstruct or undermine the investigation by Trump or members of his Administration. Whether there is any evidence on those issues — something that Deputy AG Rosenstein left the door open for in the statement he made yesterday where he was very specific in only saying that there was no evidence or allegation of collusion in the specific indictment that was made public yesterday — is something we’ll have to wait to find out.
If memory serves Trump has not denied any Russian involvement. Rather, he has denied that it affected the outcome. Same stance by a number of people. I’ve yet to see evidence of any efficacy of this Russian effort.
That Russia has been meddling, just as we have meddled in others elections, is not a novel notion. It does seem that their efforts were, shall we say, lemonade stand-ish, and are wholly eclipsed by feeding information to Steele on behalf of you know who.
As to the elements of the theory underpinning the indictments, it involves not registering foreign status, disguising source of payment and not recording payments with the FEC. By that definition (as I understand it, this is the so called “honest services” theory previously used by Mueller et al in past corporate settings) Steele should be indicted, as should Fusion GPS, as should the DNC and Clinton campaigns. Don’t hold your breath.
It looks to me like a stunt. The Russians won’t appear in court, respond/challenge or be extradited. They will just give him the finger. Yet it gets Mueller some much needed headlines. The rest is the usual theatrics.
It seems representative of investigations that Mueller oversaw when he was head of FBI – think Anthrax, Enron. Sensational charges that don’t end up with anyone arrested or seem rather shaky in court.
Here’s what I mean, the first charge on trying to influence American elections without registering as foreign agents; if applied to the US, you could charge every NGO, every CIA officer, or every State / NSC department bureaucrat. The other charges of identify and money laundering are more convincing since they would be universally considered everywhere a crime.
Second, since none of the charged are in custody and they never will be, I feel the purpose was a PR release that the investigation is alive and well. It keeps Mueller in the “offensive”; hopefully it eventually clarifies the issues vs obscuring them, I am doubtful.
Lastly, look at the dates, supposedly the whole thing started in 2014. What happened in 2014 right after the Sochi Olympics. Ah, Ukraine crisis; it seems everybody continues to have amnesia why starting from that year the Russian government and the Russian people did things that perhaps were off limits before. The problem is the Russians is the Mueller accusations are small potatoes compared to what they think the Americans did leading to the Ukraine crisis.
The last question, is there a standard on what’s “allowable” vs “illegal” methods to influence other countries. Is such a standard possible, is it necessary?
when the U. S. instigated a coup by neo-fascists against the corrupt but legitimately elected Ukrainian government to put a pro-U. S. and anti-Russian faction in charge.
I can only offer my personal opinion of what we should do or rather what we shouldn’t do. I don’t think we should interfere in anybody else’s elections full stop. That would certainly place us on stronger ground when we complain that other people are interfering with ours.
Guarani,
You’d be wrong about that, Trump has been calling the entire Russia story “Fake News” for a well over a year. He has also actively sought to undermine the investigation and bring it to a premature end, failed to implement the sanctions mandated by Congress in connection with Russian election meddling, and has ignored the warnings of his own intelligence agency heads and Cabinet Secretaries that it will happen again.
The reason for a standard is rather like the Obama administration and the Chinese negotiating on what was allowable espionage; the distinction between economic vs normal espionage was laughable to the Chinese after Snowden but they realized having agreed red lines did have the benefit of avoiding accidental war.
Just as espionage will happen even if we ban it; we cannot ban all attempts at influencing other countries elections if only because the Wilsonians among us would exercise their first amendment rights. And countries wouldn’t distinguish American citizens vs the governments. It’s rather better figure out with Russians and Iranians and Chinese what are real red lines that could trigger conflict in this sphere.
Doug.
I’ll concede a portion of that. As the internet is want to do, we find he has called the collusion portion a hoax. Muellers indictments don’t claim collusion.
If you want to seek purity in politicians public claims, you are going to be sorely disappointed. And you are awfully, in fact, instructively, selective. VRWC, offensive YouTube video, a IRS fifth amendment option, we will cut spending after the tax increase, this provision is for the children……need I go on? Further, they pale in comparison to what is being discovered about Hillary’s dirt campaign.
These indictments are toothless. They can only serve the purpose of keeping a narrative alive. BTW -where was Obama when this started? When can we expect your blog post?
My views are similar to @CuriousOnlooker’s second point. If the Russians in question cannot be punished because of the necessity of extradition, then announcing the indictments (as opposed to holding them) reduces the chance of their ever facing punishment. It would have been better to wait at least until the report of the investigation. In particular, the issue of Russian involvement becomes primarily a matter of foreign policy/ national security that should be discussed in its entirety, not though the particular stories of particular individuals.
The mitigating explanation would be the report is forthcoming, which would mean timing is incidental to that fact. More likely, the investigation is hemorrhaging legitimacy, both in perceived conflicts of interest, underlying political motivations and previous indictments that appear to have attenuated relationships with the stated scope of the investigation. (And it really, really should not surprise anybody that a political investigation would result in political attempts to at least constrain, if not undercut that investigation) Pointing to actual Russians that the FBI is trying to save us from is likely responsive to the erosion in trust.
I also agree with Doug’s chaos theory. During the campaign, Russian patterns were discussed by pundits after trump said the only way he could lose the election was if it was hacked.
“I’ll concede a portion of that. As the internet is want to do, we find he has called the collusion portion a hoax.”
He has, at times, claimed that the Russians did not interfere in our elections and that Democrats just use that as an excuse. At the Vietnamese summit, he said he believed Putin when Putin claimed they had not interfered.
While it now seems pretty clear that the ultimate Russian intent was to sow chaos, they did this by trying to help Trump get elected, then trying to undercut the validity of his election. Were they effective? No way to measure it. Anyway, Lawfare has a nice post on why the indictment is important.
https://lawfareblog.com/russian-influence-campaign-whats-latest-mueller-indictment
Steve
It is possible that the Russians interfered in our elections and that the Democrats are using it as an excuse, indeed, I think it’s likely. So far the evidence strongly suggests that the DNC gave Hillary Clinton quite a hand in becoming the party’s candidate and the DNC’s relationship with the Clinton campaign was too close. I’m not an election lawyer and I don’t know whether the relationship was illegal but it sure looks dicey.
The thing about Trump is that he cannot acknowledge anything that would negatively impact his legitimacy, even if it’s staring him in the face.