Looking for any excuse to deflect blame for damaging the campaign of 69-year-oild Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, 56-year-old James Comey agreed with a CIA assessment that Russian hacks helped the campaign of 70-year-old President-elect Donald Trump. Hillary blamed Comey after her crushing loss Nov. 8 on Comey’s on-again-off-again investigation into her emails. Now that Trump’s close to certified by the Electoral College Monday, Dec.19, disgruntled elements in the Hillary campaign want to blame Russian hacking for tilting the election to Trump. Several groups have lobbied the Electoral College to become “faithless electors,” refusing to vote consistent with state results and Constitutional duty. Hillary’s 67-year-old Campaign Manager John D. Podesta urged electors to demand an intel briefing about Russian hacking in the 2016 election.
Playing the same dirty tricks that were exposed by WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange during the campaign, Podesta asks electors to breach Constitutional duty under Electoral College rules to certify Trump the winner of the 2016 race. Podesta’s request to electors is no different than 66-year-old Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein who bamboozled election officials in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania demanding recounts because of possible Russian tampering. Stein raised millions for the recounts, far more than when she ran for the Green Party, largely from Hillary’s donors looking to negate Trump’s victory. When state election officials realized they’d been conned by Stein, they stopped the recounts in state and federal courts. Stein provided no proof for her wild speculation about Russian vote tampering. Now Podesta tries to pull the same shenanigans with the Electoral College.
Stein and Podesta did their utmost to stop Trump by disenfranchising voters in key battleground states that voted for Trump. When Monday rolls around, the lion’s share of electors will due their Constitutional duty and vote for Trump. Much of today’s controversy stems from the White House where President Barack Obama announced today he would retaliate against Russian President Vladimir Putin, driving relations even lower if that’s possible. Obama became the most partisan cheerleader for Hillary’s campaign in recent memory. Most incumbent presidents steer clear of presidential politics but not Barack. His hypocrisy knows no bounds when he lectured Trump Oct. 18 to stop “whining” about a “rigged” election and make his case to voters. After Trump won the election, Obama’s helped validate the Putin theory of Hillary’s loss, trying to invalidate Trump’s historic victory.
With a dwindling news cycle near the holidays, the media has gone into frenzy mode hyping the overblown story about how Putin influenced the 2016 election. WikiLeaks founder Assange told Fox New Sean Hannity Dec. 15 he had no dog in the fight in the U.S. election. He said four years from now, he’ll be happy to dredge up the dirt on Trump. But, getting back to the hubbub over Putin’s alleged involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee and Podesta’s emails, no one blamed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei in 1980 for former President Jimmy Carters loss to President Ronald Reagan. Carter’s campaign was damaged because of the Iranian hostage crisis, where 54 Americans were kept in captivity until the minute Reagan was sworn in. Keeping the hostages captive for 444 days no doubt helped Reagan to a landslide victory Nov. 4, 1980.
What’s clear on Capitol Hill is that Trump faces big hurdles resetting relations with Moscow. Even though Obama let U.S-Russian relations deteriorate to Cold War lows, war hawks in Congress, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), pumped from a fresh six-year-term, want to sabotage Trump’s attempt to improve relations. It’s doubtful that Trump will get his Secretary of State pick 54-year-old Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson approved, precisely because of his close business relations with Russia. Whatever the Russians hacked and whatever was reported publicly by WikiLeaks, the public needs to remember Hillary’s campaign engaged in dirty tricks needing full public exposure. Conspiring with Hillary, former DNC Chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fl.), sabotaged the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Assange exposed Hillary’s dirty tricks on WikiLeaks.
Comey’s last-ditch agreement with CIA Director John Brennan’s belief that Putin favored Trump in the 2016 election says nothing significant. All world leaders have their preference for presidential candidates. It’s a big leap suggesting that Putin influenced voters in key swing states handing Trump the victory Nov. 8. Hillary blamed Comey for losing the election. National polling suggested that Hillary wasn’t trustworthy with growing numbers of voters, made worse when Comey announced Nov. 2 he was reopening Hillary’s email investigation. When voters heard from Assange that former CNN pundit interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile gave Hillary debate questions before the Oct. 9 debate that hurt Hillary’s credibility. Creating the latest brouhaha over Russian hacking was Hillary’s last-ditch attempt to steal electoral votes from Trump before the Electoral College meets Dec. 19.
