Russia coincidence theory is fantasy
Conspiracy is hard to miss, unless you want to
Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia either worked together to help elect our current president, or we are witnessing the greatest coincidence since the Big Bang.
Call it collusion. Call it a collaboration. Or quote special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments and call it a “conspiracy against the United States.” Just don’t call it a coincidence.
If you want to argue that Russia randomly decided to do almost everything it could to put Trump in the White House, and that Trump was too hapless to properly conspire, even after decades of schemes where he got richer while others got burned, here are just some fantastic events that you have to believe are mere “coincidences”:
2013: After decades of struggling to do business in Russia and in the midst of plotting what many assumed would be another vanity run for president, Trump announced he planned to hold his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The 67-year-old reality TV star tweeted that June, “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?”
The next month, the Internet Research Agency registered in Russia to begin what a recent Mueller indictment called “information warfare against the United States of America.”
2014: Trump attacked Russia’s policies when it was convenient to criticize President Obama, but he refused to say a negative word in public about President Vladimir Putin — a policy he pretty much extends only to his businesses, his relatives and his anatomy.
On Fox News, Trump defended the slapstick spectacle of the Sochi Olympics and warned that “we should not be knocking that country” because the United States is “going to win something important later on, and they won’t be opposed to what we’re doing.”
In April, after the U.S. had levied sanctions on Russia for “violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the Internet Research Agency allegedly began its U.S.-focused “translator project,” with a goal of spreading “distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.” Coincidentally, this later became a major theme of Trump’s presidential bid.
2015: Trump launched his campaign in June. As he continued to praise Putin and question NATO, social media trolls backed by the Kremlin rained support on Trump. In September, the FBI warned the Democratic National Committee that at least one of its computers had been hacked by Russians.
The next month, shortly after Trump’s Twitter account tweeted an article entitled “Putin Loves Donald Trump,” Trump signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow (never disclosed during the campaign).
Felix Sater, a longtime Trump associate reputed to have Russian mob con- nections, told Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen in a November email, “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
2016: Paul Manafort, a Trump Tower resident with a long history of lobbying for foreign despots, joined the Trump campaign in March. Manafort was willing to work for free, despite apparently owing up to $17 million to pro-Russian interests.
That same month, the Gmail account of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was hacked.
In June, Donald Trump Jr. received an email that said the “Crown prosecutor” of Russia had “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary.” Trump Jr. responded, “If it’s what you say I love it.” The meeting happened that month.
At the Republican National Convention in July, after years of criticizing Obama’s weakness toward Russia, the GOP softened platform language opposing Putin’s moves in Ukraine. The next week, WikiLeaks began leaking hacked emails from the DNC.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 (Clinton) emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said soon after. He could predict rewards for Russia only if he knew Russia wanted to harm Clinton.
At that point, the Internet Research Agency’s agenda “included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (‘Trump Campaign’) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.” What a coincidence.
In October, hours after the Access Hollywood tape came out, WikiLeaks began to release Podesta’s emails. Though the Trump campaign is supposedly feckless, it summoned laser focus on this. “I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said in one of his 141 references to the group in the month before the election.
Of particular interest to the Trump team was an email that allegedly mocked “conservative Catholicism.” It almost immediately became the obsession of the right. Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence joined the calls for Clinton to apologize to Catholics, a group she led with in August but ultimately lost or came close to losing. Where might the Catholic vote have been decisive? Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Another coincidence.
“Coincidences” since the election include naming a winner of the “Russian Order of Friendship” as secretary of State, easing sanctions on Putin, and refusing to implement new sanctions or secure our elections.
If you don’t see the conspiracy by now, you just don’t want to.
Trump has long benefited from the willingness of his opponents, his creditors and the news media to underestimate his guile and ruthlessness. Apparently, that’s a mistake Russia didn’t make.