The Patriot Post® · Another Bogus 'Russian Interference' Intel Report
Bolshevik Bernie Sanders must be laughing all the way to the Gosbank and the Democrat National Convention. The Leftmedia is awash today with stories that Russia is at it again. The New York Times broke the story: “Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected.”
We’ve seen this pathetic movie before, so there’s no need in rehashing how Democrats and their Leftmedia super PAC seized on phony allegations that Trump “colluded” with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. They spent nearly three years yammering about it only to finally be distracted by the Ukraine fiasco. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some aspects of this story that deserve a refresher.
First of all, this isn’t new. As Mark Alexander argues, “Russia has strived to interfere with American elections since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the rise of the Soviet communists. The only thing new about this ‘interference’ is that it has been, and remains, fodder for the Left to undermine Trump’s presidency. The irony is, leftists and their Leftmedia propagandists are, as they were in 2016, backing a communist who they hope will defeat Trump.”
Anyone remember when Ted Kennedy requested Soviet interference to help defeat Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election? The New York Times doesn’t, because that inconvenient history doesn’t help Democrats now.
Today’s news follows the same template used in 2017. As the Times reminds us, “The intelligence community issued an assessment in early 2017 that President Vladimir V. Putin personally ordered a campaign of influence in the previous year’s election and developed ‘a clear preference for President-elect Trump.’ But Republicans have long argued that Moscow’s campaign was intended to sow chaos, not aid Mr. Trump specifically.”
Republicans were exactly right. Besides, Trump has been tough on Russia throughout his presidency, and his work to bolster U.S. energy production (especially via fracking), strengthen NATO, and stabilize Europe and the Middle East are directly counter to Putin’s objectives. The idea that Putin truly prefers Trump over Sanders or any other Democrat is ludicrous.
Moreover, Moscow generally interferes in a way that supports the expected loser in order to undermine the eventual winner. Given that everyone thought Clinton was going to win in 2016, that left the Russians with the obvious choice of “backing” Trump. Their objective succeeded beyond Putin’s wildest dreams, as Democrats aided him in peddling the narrative that American election integrity was compromised and a duly elected president was somehow corrupt, even going so far as to impeach that president. Putin got four years of chaos out of a few Facebook ads. Of course he’s going to run that same play (with necessary operational tweaks), and Democrats, the Leftmedia, and apparently some deep-state intelligence officials are all too eager to help him.
One final history lesson: Barack Obama’s administration was well aware of Russian efforts to interfere all throughout 2016, yet Obama and his cadre of deep-staters said and did nothing to stop it, in part because it was so ineffectual but primarily because they didn’t want to taint Clinton’s supposedly certain victory. Only when Trump shocked the world by winning did Obama’s gang decide to turn this “crisis” into an opportunity to undermine the incoming president with the Russia-collusion hoax.
After last week’s report to Congress, Trump removed acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and chose German ambassador Richard Grenell to take his place. It’s part of a general and much-needed house cleaning after Trump’s impeachment and acquittal. Nevertheless, the Democrats’ 2020 playbook is now evident.