Leaping to conclusions about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee [DNC], the CIA insisted that Moscow favored Trump in the 2016 election. Whether that’s true or not, that’s a far cry from Dr. Jill Stein’s outrageous claims about foreign actors, i.e., Russia, hacking into electronic voting machines. Already rejected by the Michigan Supreme Court, a U.S. District Court Judge Paul S. Diamond’s expected to follow suit, stopping recounts in Pennsylvania. Just like the CIA, Stein’s claims are equally outrageous that Russia tampered with U.S. elections. Michigan’s High Court ruled Stein had no basis for ordering recounts because she had no chance with less than one percent of the vote of changing the outcome. Stein’s speculation about Russian hacking was a feeble excuse, prompting Wisconsin officials to end recounts last week.
CIA officials have leaped to conclusions about Russia’s preference for one candidate over the other. Assuming both the DNC and Republican National Committees were hacked, the CIA assumes leaking only DNC emails to WikiLeaks proves the Kremlin favored President-elect Donald Trump over Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Every country on the planet following the U.S. election had preferences for Trump or Hillary. Even assuming that the Russians hacked both the DNC and RNC, the CIA leaps to conclusions thinking they tired to help Trump get elected. ‘I don’t believe it,” Trump said on a pre-recorded interview on Fox News. “I think it’s ridiculous,” drawing a distinction between having preferences versus actually manipulating a U.S. election. Mainstream media outlets are playing up Russian interference in the 2016 election.
War hawks on Capitol Hill led by Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), hope to join Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.N.Y) to oppose Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia. “Recent cyber attacks that have cut to heart of our free society,” must be stopped said McCain and Graham. Two of Trump’s biggest critics on Capitol Hill, McCain and Graham plan to throw a monkey wrench into Trump’s foreign policy plans. Teetering on picking Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, Trump already finds objections, especially among foreign policy elites. Trump’s plan to put former Bush-43 U.N. Amb. John Bolton as Deputy Secretary of State, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) threatened to filibuster Trump’s pick. Paul sees Bolton as a war hawk, firmly backing the Iraq War.
All the talk about Russia interference boils down to an attempt to sabotage Trump’s goal of working with Russia. Tillerson, who’s done extensive business in Russia and 50 countries around the globe, enjoys the “Friend of Russia” medal, giving by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This cannot be a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country,” McCain and Graham said with Schumer, signaling they intend to fight Trump on normalizing relations with Russia. “This was not China. This wasn’t a 400 pound guy in New Jersey or anyone else,” said ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Peter Schiff (D-Calif.). McCain, Graham, Schumer and Schiff all miss the point. Whatever hacking went on by foreign actors in the 2016 election, it’s up to the National Security Advisor Susan Rice to fix the problem. Whether the Russian hacked the DNC or not, that’s a far cry to Stein’s wild speculation about tampering with electronic voting machines.
If WikiLeaks chose to leak DNC hacked material, it purely because it had substance. It wasn’t the Russians or WikiLeaks fault that former DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schults conspired with Hillary to sabotage the campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t Wikileaks fault that former CNN pundit and Democratic Operation Donna Brazile gave Hillary questions before CNN’s Oct. 9 town hall debate. Foreign leaders have their preference for U.S. presidents but that not the same, as Stein suggests, as tampering with U.S. elections. Voters are free to listen to anyone regarding the election, including domestic or foreign newspapers or leaders. If the Kremlin preferred Trump, it’s because they saw an opportunity to improve U.S.-Russian relations, not, as McCain, Graham, Schumer and Schiff suggest, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Throwing cold water on his daily intelligence briefings, Trump did the unthinkable, told the truth. “You know, I’m a smart person. I don’t need to told the same words every single day for the next eight years,” referring to the NSA’s daily security briefings. Trump also rocked the boat questioning Boeing’s outrageous charges for upgrading the Air Force One fleet, some 10 times the cost of a commercial 747 jetliner. Trump ruffled feathers in the diplomatic community taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. No matter what the reaction in Beijing, it’s not up to Communist China to tell a U.S. President-elect with whom he can talk. “I don’t want China dictating to me,” said Trump, rejecting critics suggesting he breached the “One China” U.S. policy. When it comes to the CIA insisting Russia favored Trump, it has nothing to do with tampering with the U.S. election.
