USA TODAY International Edition
Russian roulette
Why does Trump seem to trust Putin more than his own intelligence agencies?
In the normal course of business, it’s hard to get America’s fractious intelligence agencies to agree that 2 + 2 = 4. So the unclassified version of their assessment about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee is all the more remarkable. The FBI, the CIA and the NSA wrote with “high confidence” ( itself rare in the intelligence world) that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U. S. presidential election,” and two of three agencies had high confidence the goal was to help Donald Trump.
Yes, the intelligence community has made mistakes, most notoriously regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But in this case, it is obvious the spies have such a high degree of proof — likely including electronic intercepts of conversations and human intelligence reports as well as forensic investigation of the hacked computers — that there is no disputing their bottom line.
Even Trump, who has consistently refused to admit that the DNC was hacked by Russians rather than some 400- pound couch potato, felt compelled after receiving the classified version of the assessment to issue a statement that did not doubt its conclusions. Yet even then he would not admit that the culprit was solely Russia.
His statement referred not only to Russia but also to “China, other countries, outside groups and people” that “are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations, including the Democratic National Committee.” He’s right that China and other states consistently engage in cyber espionage, but Russia is unique for leaking emails in order to swing an American election.
HYPING THE HACK Trump’s statement further claimed, “There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
It’s true there was no tampering with voting machines, but how can Trump state so confidently that the Russian hack had “no effect” on the outcome of an election that was decided by 80,000 people in three states?
If the hack was so inconsequential, why did Trump hype the resulting information — about how the DNC supposedly favored Hillary Clinton in the primaries — to try to persuade Bernie Sanders’ supporters not to vote for her in the general election? Why did he constantly bring up WikiLeaks in the final month of the campaign and say the group had “done a job” on her?
One suspects Trump of a guilty conscience, given that within hours he was back to blaming the victims rather than perpetrators for the hack. “Gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place,” he tweeted. As investment manager Patrick Chovanec quipped: “This is like G. Gordon Liddy saying the DNC should have installed better locks.”
Trump has often expressed admiration for Putin and never criticized him. Recently, for example, he tweeted his congratulations — “Great move on delay ( by V. Putin). I always knew he was very smart!” — when the Russian strongman refused to react in kind to President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the hacking.
‘ STUPID’ PEOPLE That pattern did not change even after the release of the damning intelligence report. Trump had not one word of disapprobation for the Russian meddling in our election. Instead, he tweeted: “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘ stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad!”
In truth, no American wants a bad relationship with Russia. But many of us have concluded that a good relationship is impossible until Putin stops invading neighboring countries ( Georgia, Ukraine), stops committing war crimes ( Syria), and stops trying to undermine Western institutions — something he is doing not only in the U. S. but across Western Europe with his support of extremist parties, such as the National Front in France and even coup plotters in Montenegro.
Trump, however, doesn’t offer the slightest objection to Russia’s egregious misconduct, which raises the question: Why not? Is it simply admiration for the Russian dictator on the part of a president- elect who has said that Putin’s Russia is “hot stuff,” and that “what he’s done for Russia is really amazing”? Or is something more sinister going on?
The New York Times has just published a damning investigation showing the extent to which Jared Kushner, Trump’s son- inlaw and newly named senior adviser, is heavily dependent on shadowy Chinese and Russian financiers closely linked to their governments. Might the Trump Organization be equally compromised? We have no way of knowing because Trump is so opaque about his finances. But his adherence to a slavishly pro- Putin line, if it continues in office, will certainly raise such suspicions.