Vis-a-vis the last post, this from Kurt Eichenwald on the relationship(s) between the Trump campaign and the Russian government:
I really am trying to resist seeing grand conspiracies here -- I don't think anyone involved is that together (except maybe the Russians) -- but it's getting a little too close for comfort.
Via Joe.My.God.
In phone calls, meetings and cables, America’s European allies have expressed alarm to one another about Donald Trump’s public statements denying Moscow’s role in cyberattacks designed to interfere with the U.S. election. They fear the Republican nominee for president has emboldened the Kremlin in its unprecedented cyber-campaign to disrupt elections in multiple countries in hopes of weakening Western alliances, according to intelligence, law enforcement and other government officials in the United States and Europe.
While American intelligence officers have privately briefed Trump about Russia’s attempts to influence the U.S. election, he has publicly dismissed that information as unreliable, instead saying this hacking of incredible sophistication and technical complexity could have been done by some 400-pound “guy sitting on their bed” or even a child.
Officials from two European countries told Newsweek that Trump’s comments about Russia’s hacking have alarmed several NATO partners because it suggests he either does not believe the information he receives in intelligence briefings, does not pay attention to it, does not understand it or is misleading the American public for unknown reasons. One British official said members of that government who are aware of the scope of Russia’s cyberattacks both in Western Europe and America found Trump’s comments “quite disturbing” because they fear that, if elected, the Republican presidential nominee would continue to ignore information gathered by intelligence services in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
I really am trying to resist seeing grand conspiracies here -- I don't think anyone involved is that together (except maybe the Russians) -- but it's getting a little too close for comfort.
Via Joe.My.God.
2 comments:
Anyone who dismisses the Russians as uninterested or unskilled is either delusional or dishonest. Putin spent nearly two decades in the KGB and rose to relatively high rank there before getting involved in politics, and he's now gaming the system to hold onto power. An autocrat, he's also intelligent and sly, and the West is collectively quite justified in viewing him with deep suspicion.
I suspect the Western intelligence community (both individually and collectively) are very much aware of what Putin is capable of. They seem to have a fairly good take on what's going on with the Russian-sponsored hackers.
But let's see -- who would have an interest in deflecting attention away from Russian attempts to influence the election? Begins with a "T", ends with at "p", and is pronounced "fascist."
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