Trump has been difficult for the Russian government following the election, but that’s not what we’re talking about. You don’t remember Trump’s rhetoric before the election?
Maybe this will jog your memory
Here’s my favorite:
“Then Putin said, ’Donald Trump is a genius, he’s going to be the next great leader of the United States.’ No, no, think of it. They wanted me to disavow what he said. How dare you call me a genius. How dare you call me a genius, Vladimir. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia? Wouldn’t that be good?"
Do you look at the question I was answering before writing this? I didn’t say or imply it was illegal to talk about Russia. All I’m saying is that he gave Russia plenty of reason to favor him during the election.
So what about the supposed Facebook ad campaign. Why did it favor and distract from both sides? What about the Sputnik? It attacked both sides. What about RT? It favored mostly the Liberals and then attacked Hillary?
Only a Sampling
While the ads being made public by Congress were just a sampling of the large Russian influence operation, independent researchers in recent weeks have identified and made public a far greater volume of such pages. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms have shut down the suspect accounts, but it is still possible to retrieve many of the posts and images because they were widely shared across the internet.
I don’t go by the media sources. I’m going by the intelligence community that takes a much broader scope and with far better sourcing.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.
It’s been delayed several times to supposedly add more findings as things have been uncovered. It’s probably being delayed right on top of the meeting with North Korea so that the findings will be buried in the news cycle.
Actually, it’s completely relevant to his argument that Russia was not interested in one candidate or another, but what is bad overall for the US. Remember, no one thought Trump would win. So as soon as he did, the negative comes. Also, it sounds like a pretty good insurance policy.
