I ask: “Who Assisted With Russian “Interference” With Election?,” because even if the DNC was hacked at the instigation of some Russian government agency, that doesn’t equal interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Russian hackers can’t vote in the United States, with the possible exception of Chicago, so the initial hack had no impact on the election.
Following the alleged Russian hack, the files were transferred to Wikileaks. At the time Julian Assange, editorin-chief of Wikileaks was residing in the Embassy of Ecuador, London. Julian and friends can’t vote in the United States either, again excepting for Chicago.
Up to this point, there is exactly zero impact on the 2016 US presidential election.
Even Snopes concedes it is only unproven that Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate Julian Assange, so it isn’t difficult to imagine hard feelings on the part of Julian.
Wikileaks has a long history of being equally difficult for all governments that needs no elaboration here. If you doubt that, you haven’t spent any time at the Wikileaks site. Take a day or so to satisfy yourself on that score and return to this post.
In any event, with great fanfare and general disappointment with each release, Wikileaks trickled out the Podesta emails. John Podesta was Clinton’s campaign manager.
I saw the emails as did many others but still not in numbers that would constitute “interference” with an election.
So, where did the Russian “interference” come from?
Did the New York Times Enable Russian “Interference”?
If you run this query:
http://api.nytimes.com/svc/search/v2/articlesearch.json?fq=body: (%22Clinton%22AND%22Wikileaks%22)&begin_date=20160901
&end_date=20161107&api-key=
with your own New York Times article API key, you will get (in part):
{“response”:{“meta”:{“hits”:252,”time”:56,”offset”:0},
In English: Between September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016, both “Clinton” and “Wikileaks” occurred in 252 separate articles appearing in the New York Times.
Over 68 days there were more than 4.5 articles per day in the New York Times on Hillary Clinton and Wikileaks.
Did The Guardian Enable Russian “Interference”?
If you run this query:
https://content.guardianapis.com/search?q=clinton%20AND%20wikileaks&from-date=2016-09-01&to-date=2016-11-07&api-key=
with your own Guardian API key, you will get (in part):
{“response”:{“status”:”ok”,”userTier”:”developer”,”total”:123,”startIndex”:1,
In English: Between September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016, both “Clinton” and “Wikileaks” occurred in 123 separate times in The Guardian.
Over 68 days there were approximately 1.8 articles per day in The Guardian on Hillary Clinton and Wikileaks.
Enabling “Interference”
Let’s be clear, I chose the New York Times and The Guardian in part because they have public APIs but also to illustrate the absurdity of the claims of “interference” in an election by the Russians.
The chain of “inference” runs something along the lines of:
- Looks like Russian work (no fact/evidence)
- Wikileaks is a Russian operative (facially false)
- One or more of the editors of the New York Times are Russian sleeper agents (also facially false)
I included the line about New York Times editors because the emails didn’t spread themselves from the Wikileaks servers did they?
Summary
To find Russian “interference” with the 2016 US presidential election you have to believe that Wikileaks, the New York Times, and The Guardian (and others) all acted in furtherance of a plan hatched by imaginary Russian hackers to release some of the dullest emails since the first email (1971).
You can believe that based on specious assurances from known liars (Clapper comes to mind) but I’m passing.
Congressional hearings should include every news source and commentator that repeated the Clinton/Wikileaks story so they can be sifted for “Russian” influence and fellow travelers.
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin.