How Accurate Was the Coverage of Russiagate?
Executive Summary
- Most media entities made minimal effort to find evidence for Russiagate.
- What does this say about the interests of most media entities that covered Russiagate?
Introduction
This is a review of the coverage of Russiagate.
Recognizing this absence of evidence helps examine what has been substituted in its place. Shattered, the insider account of the Clinton campaign, reports that “in the days after the election, Hillary declined to take responsibility for her own loss.” Instead, one source recounted, aides were ordered “to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way.” Within 24 hours of Clinton’s concession speech, top officials gathered “to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up.… Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.” – The Nation
Did Trump Conspire with Russia — or with the Philippines and Turkey?
The story does raise a potential conflict of interest: Trump pursued a Moscow deal as he praised Putin on the campaign trail. But it is hard to see how a deal that never got off the ground is of more importance than actual deals Trump made in places like Turkey, the Philippines, and the Persian Gulf. If anything, the story should introduce skepticism into whether any collusion took place: The deal failed, and Trump’s lawyer did not even have an e-mail address for his Russian counterparts. – The Nation
A $100,000 in Facebook Ads Are An Unprecedented Invasion of US Democracy?
Then there is Facebook’s disclosure that fake accounts “likely operated out of Russia” paid $100,000 for 3,000 ads starting in June 2015. The New York Times editorial board described it as “further evidence of what amounted to unprecedented foreign invasion of American democracy.”
A $100,000 Facebook ad buy seems unlikely to have had much impact in a $6.8 billion election.
According to Facebook, “the vast majority of ads…didn’t specifically reference the US presidential election, voting or a particular candidate” but rather focused “on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum—touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.” Facebook also says the majority of ads, 56 percent, were seen “after the election.” The ads have not been released publicly. But by all indications, if they were used to try to elect Trump, their sponsors took a very curious route. – The Nation
This was stated by the New York Times. But we have to ask if the New York Times can do the math.
This number becomes so small, and it is difficult even to take it seriously. If 56% of the ads were shown after the election, this is an expenditure for Trump of $100,000 * .56 or $56,000. But then again, if no candidate is mentioned (as in most of the ads), how can this be an attempt to influence the election? As $44,000 of the ads were run prior to the election, that is the dollar amount to try to associate with influencing the election.
Secondly, some of the ads cover topics like Black Lives Matter, that would tend to work against Trump. Some of the advertisements are actually anti-Trump.
If the Internet Research Agency was intent on tipping the election for Trump, why was this ad run?
Is this an ad that was intended to swing voters from Hillary to Trump?
Did anyone actually believe this line, “Trump is an honest man?”
Was this likely to take a Hillary Clinton voter and switch them the Donald Trump?
Here we have a genuinely anti-Hillary Clinton ad. But notice it is very similar to the anti-Trump ad above. In either of these cases, would this really switch a person’s vote?
One can make their own determination as to how much these ads were advocating for Hillary Clinton versus Trump. However, the claim of the establishment is enormous. The claim is that these ads were decisive in switching a person to vote from one candidate to another. Therefore, the ad would have not only to advocate for Trump versus Clinton, but it would also have had to have switched the vote of that viewer.
Our analysis is that this is not how you would structure ads or one’s spend to influence an election. The ads look like what Internet Research Agency said the ads were designed to do.
“To sow discord and distrust in the candidates and the political system in general?”
This video explains the purpose of Internet Research Agency activities — it is to make money.
These ads deserved an indictment by the FBI?
Secondly, how is that translated by the establishment to evidence that Russia hacked the election in favor of Hillary Clinton?
And another problem is that the Internet Research Agency was trying to make money from this activity. The Internet Research Agency was attempting to collect email addresses from the ads. Why would a Russian backed attempt to influence the election operated like a business?
Were the Russian Indictments Created to Gin Up Russiagate?
Those who support the Russiagate concept continually point to the indictments of 13 Russians that worked for a Russian entity, which is a troll farm called the Internet Research Agency.
Google reported $4,700 spent by Russian sources on Google ads during the 2016 election. Why has this revelation and this overall interview with the CEO of Google not been widely covered?
If Google expenditures are added to Facebook expenditures, this comes to $4,700 dollars spent by Russian entities (not necessarily traced to the Russian government) to influence the election. This is the only expenditure we can verify that it was spent by Russian sources.
The Hillary Clinton campaign spent $2 B on the election. This is almost 425,000 times what was spent by Russian sources.
In total, there was $6.8 B spent on the election — and a large amount of this was spent by large corporations to influence or buy candidates to do what they wanted when they got into office. However, corporate donations are not the lead story. The lead story is the $4,700 spent by Russian entities to influence the election?
Why is the fact the Bob Woodward could not find any evidence of collusion not been widely covered?
Yet commentary like this is quite common.
Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, who was a campaign advisor, said, “Isn’t it kinda clear that Trump wouldn’t have won without Russia’s help? Wake up America.” – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
Where is the evidence of this help from Russia turning the election?
“Former CIA director and secretary of defense Leon Panetta was a senior foreign policy advisor for the campaign. He was a regular commentator on CNN and MSNBC and contended, Whether the Russians have something on this president or not, no one really knows, but the way he behaves, there is a clear signal that the Russians have something on him.” – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
The second quote makes no sense. IT begins by claiming no one knows if an assertion is true then switches to supporting the assertion.
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who was part of the Clinton administration, said Trump was the “gift that keeps giving to Putin.” –Kevin Gosztola – Medium
How has Trump been a gift to Putin? When Trump planned to pull out of Syria, a war that is illegal, Trump was again called a Putin puppet.
The logic for being in Syria is never explained. But anyone who opposes the war is a Putin puppet. CNN receives major funding from defense contractors and has many CIA and defense establishment people working at CNN. With Russiagate mania, no war has to be justified, or its legality questioned — all that has to be asserted is that Putin dislikes a US action, and this is all that is necessary for CNN to carry the story forward.
What Evidence Did the DNC Have that Their Servers Were Hacked by Russians?
“The DNC did not allow the FBI to examine its computer server for clues about who may have hacked it — or even if it was hacked — and instead turned to CrowdStrike, a private company co-founded by a virulently anti-Putin Russian. Within a day, CrowdStrike blamed Russia on dubious evidence.” – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
And the incentives of DNC operatives to push this narrative.
The Trump-Russia narrative was appealing because it gave Clinton campaign staff the ability to avoid taking a large part of the responsibility for losing to Trump. It offered them some security.
If this narrative dominated media coverage, they would maintain their relevancy and still be asked regularly to write op-eds for prominent media outlets or appear on cable news television. They would still be consulted for their opinions and could offer commentary without having to defend their reputations. – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
And what was the incentive among establishment Democrats for perpetuating the party line?
The Trump-Russia narrative was an easy way to avoid continuing debates the Sanders campaign forced around single-payer health care, jobs, free college tuition, taxes, the environment, and corporate welfare. (These debates, by the way, were ones Sanders Democrats were winning.)
This is clearly true. The DNC has been unwilling to address the fact that so many of their funders are the same as the RNC and that so many of their policies are close to the RNC policies.
This video shows that the head of the DNC, Tom Perez, refuses to answer any of the questions regarding the DNC support for progressive policies. Most Democratic voters want the policies supported by Bernie Sanders, but Tom Perez and the DNC gaslight Democrat voters because the DNC opposes progressive policies.
The DNC and establishment candidates seem to be more interested in talking about Russia and Trump than what the Democrats will do.
Russian Hacking Obsession Syndrome?
“After the recent white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville, foreign-policy consultant Molly McKew issued a widely circulated appeal on Twitter: “We need to have a conversation about what is happening today in Charlottesville & Russian influence, and operations, in the United States.” (McKew recently testified at a US government hearing on “The Scourge of Russian Disinformation.”)” – The Nation
What evidence does Molly McKew have that Charlottesville was engineered by Russia? Is there anything that can’t be blamed on Russia?
“We are preoccupied with this,” Turner added. “It’s not that this is not important, but every day Americans are being left behind because it’s Russia, Russia, Russia. Do we need all 535 members of Congress to deal with Russia? Can some of them deal with some domestic issues?” – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
Evidence for Hacking?
Oliver Stone explained that there is actually no evidence of hacking on the part of Russians of the US election. The reporter keeps asking Oliver Stone the same questions that the rest of the conventional media agrees with. The interviewer has no interest in anything Oliver Stone has to say.
This video shows that the Clinton emails were locally downloaded, and not hacked over the Internet. This means the emails extracted from the DNC were extracted from someone on site.
This video shows an FBI attorney creating fake evidence to gain FISA warrants. The FBI did this 17 times and an FBI attorney was indicted for one of them. This illustrates that the FBI routinely manufactures evidence.
Europe Knows that the US Claims of Russia Meddling in the US Election are Fake
The US is well known to meddle in the most extreme ways in the elections of other countries. This is why Europeans often have a hard time taking the accusations by the US establishment against Russia seriously.
The revelations of Snowden make the US allegations against Russia absurd. The US has the world’s most extensive surveillance operation and performs the most interference in the election process of other countries.
Why is the information released by Snowden, where the US has installed code onto the infrastructure of European allies that can allow it to disrupt Europe in the event of conflict not been juxtaposed against the claims by the US regarding hacking?
The Meuller Report
Now, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has concluded. Mueller was unable to “establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté spent every other week for the past two years debunking false claims and deliberate exaggerations in the United States media that fed all sorts of wild and feverish story lines about the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia President Vladimir Putin’s administration. – Medium
SNL Admits Russiagate Was a Hoax
After years of skits that placed Trump as a puppet of Putin (as advocated by the establishment media), SNL admitted in this skit that Russiagate was a fabrication.
SNL was tricked by the establishment media into making jokes about something that was never true.
Where is the Real Story with Trump and Russia?
Trump has well-documented connections to oligarchs. However, none of this — that is the topic of collusion — was covered in the Mueller investigation.
How Much Did Hillary Clinton Interfere in the Election?
Candidates and political parties are supposed to advocate for their positions, and they are not supposed to try to choose who the opposition will be. However, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC clearly did this.
It advocated against marginalizing “more extreme candidates.” The campaign wanted “Pied Piper candidates,” like Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson, to be viewed as representatives of the Republican Party.
“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”
In 2015, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook pushed for a primary schedule, where the red states held their primaries early. It would increase “the likelihood the Rs nominate someone extreme.” – Medium
The Democrat establishment was trying to stop Republican extremism of foster it?
Secondly, the Democrats support the electoral college, which allowed Trump to win the election even though he lost the popular vote. They also won’t eliminate superdelegates, which allow the superdelegates to vote for candidates their constituents did not vote for.
This might be the truest thing said about Russiagate.
There will likely be zero repercussions for former Clinton campaign staff who pushed Russiagate conspiracy theories. – Kevin Gosztola – Medium
References
https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-is-more-fiction-than-fact/
https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails
https://medium.com/@kevin_33184/its-time-to-reckon-with-clinton-democrats-who-pushed-russiagate-9ecb67cb60ae
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million