"Russia ~ If You're Listening?" is an oxymoron
Russian operatives are always listening. In fact, Russia may even have put a "bugging chip" in the soccer ball given to Donald Trump by Vladimir Putin at the "Helsinki-knee" kowtow conference. "Where there are Russians, there are also audio 'bugs'". Donald Trump didn't need to ask "Russia, if you're listening?". They were already doing so. Surveillance began in earnest at the 2013, Miss Universe pageant, in Russia, near Moscow.
Echo Opinion published in the Pennsylvania newspaper "The Intelligencer", by Kathleen Parker
Opinion
Echo Opinion published in the Pennsylvania newspaper "The Intelligencer", by Kathleen Parker
Opinion
Vladimir Putin gives a World Cup soccer ball (with a "chip" embedded into it) to Donald Trump, during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018. |
Kathleen Parker asks: "... the question has to be: Why, if there’s no concern about collusion, would Trump keep pounding Mueller while defending Putin?"
WASHINGTON — It’s a given that political candidates
will target each other with as much oppositional propaganda as they can get
away with. But with the Kremlin now playing a third-party shadow role in U.S.
elections, the usual game seems to be shifting from blood sport to cold war.
Given Russia’s well-established (and admitted by Vladimir Putin) preference for
Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, it’s possible, if not likely, that
the next round of election meddling will be geared toward keeping the
Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
For Democrats, this added pressure from Russia could
easily begin to feel like a threat. Imagine believing that you’re not only
running against a Republican but also against a former KGB agent who seems to
be in cahoots with your very own president.
What else should one think?
During a rally Thursday evening in Pennsylvania,
Trump once again referred to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as
the “Russian hoax.” This, amid the intelligence community’s stepped-up warnings
about new Russian interference.
And, let’s not forget the 12 Russians whom
Mueller indicted last month for hacking Democratic Party computer networks.
Mueller is not generally known as a hoaxer.
But Trump remains the slick salesman, entertainer
and pot stirrer he’s always been. Just hours before his stick-it-to-’em
jamboree, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and several national
intelligence officials convened a media briefing to address Russian attempts to
impact the midterm elections.
That is, with a slight modification. In her
statement, Sanders assured gathered media that the administration “will not
tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation-state or other
dangerous actor,” clearly indicating that the focus would not be only on
Russia.
As it should be, given that others would also like
to meddle in our affairs. But as the gathered officials made clear — including
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Director Christopher Wray and
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — Russia is of central concern
here and now. Wray said that Russia “continues to engage in malign influence
operations” that target “the integrity of our democratic institutions.” Coats
said: “We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to
weaken and divide the United States.”
Then why is the president undermining his own
advisers?
Although Trump is referring primarily to Mueller’s
core mission — to determine whether the Trump campaign was involved in the
Russian interference — he seems more than willing to minimize the importance of
what we already know. Thus, the question has to be: Why, if there’s no concern
about collusion, would Trump keep pounding Mueller while defending Putin?
One can only conclude that either there’s a little
smidge of guilt, a problematic family connection, a dossier embarrassment — or
the president of the United States doesn’t care that Russia tried to ruin
Clinton so that he could become president. He seems to care so little, in fact,
that he’s essentially calling America’s intelligence community a pack of liars
and Mueller a hoaxer. Meanwhile, last month in Helsinki, Trump said Putin was
an “extremely strong and powerful” denier. (Have these guys exchanged jewelry
yet?)
If Putin says he didn’t do it, then Trump takes him
at his word? Yet, when teams of skilled, honorable investigators tackle the
problem and present indictments based on facts, Trump insinuates that they’re
making it up?
This reversal of loyalty to his own people, not to
mention the country he is tasked with leading, is so preposterous that normal
people are at serious risk of joining lemming colonies. It isn’t possible to
use logic with the illogical; it’s futile to explain the obvious to the
willfully thick; and when it comes to Trump’s base, witness only the rally last
week in Florida where CNN reporter Jim Acosta was the target of dozens of
Trumpers extending their middle digits and shouting, among other salutations,
“You suck!”
Perhaps, some in Trump’s camp see things like steady
job growth and low unemployment and say to themselves, Who cares how he
got elected? And if Russia likes Trump, why is that necessarily bad? The
president, they would note, has been checking off his list of campaign promises
without so much as changing his expression.
One could make such an argument, but this
would be a narrow view and an unserious response to other facts. These include
what almost any Russian would surely tell you — that Putin is playing Trump
like a fiddle — and that something was stinky in Helsinki.
MaineWriter note~ Russia continues to listen. (As a matter of fact, Russians who are reading this echo opinion.) Donald Trump is counting on them to pull off the shadow election in the fall, like they did when the 2016 campaign was maligned by the cyber attack on American democracy. "Russia, if you're listening" is a classic oxymoron. Russians are always listening and now the cyber attackers are also invading our nation.
Kathleen Parker ~ Her email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.
Labels: Donald Trump, Kathleen Parker, Miss Universe, Moscow, Robert Mueller, The Intelligencer, Vladimir Putin
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