Pretty Much Everything Related to Russia's Hacking
- Charlie Biscotto
- Dec 18, 2016
- 2 min read
This week, Donald Trump has tweeted out a couple of real whoppers related to the Russian hacking allegations. We'll take them one at a time.
On October 7th, more than a full month prior to the election, the Washington Post published an account of the government accusations. These came both from the White House and Republican Congressmen:
“Today was just the first step,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a member of the Homeland Security Committee. “Russia must face serious consequences. Moscow orchestrated these hacks because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin believes Soviet-style aggression is worth it. The United States must upend Putin’s calculus with a strong diplomatic, political, cyber and economic response.”
We know Trump doesn't like the Washington Post, and perhaps he doesn't pay attention to Republicans who refuse to endorse him, but he should have remembered the specter of Russian interference being raised by Hillary Clinton in one of their more memorable exchanges from the third presidential debate. One of two things is true. Either Donald Trump has the memory of a goldfish or he's deliberately lying. Neither is good.
It wasn't quite 24 hours before he upped the ante:
First of all, this is clearly an attempt at misdirection. Rather than address the "cyberattack" or the very real problem of information acquired via hacking, he's using that problematically acquired information to take shots at Hillary Clinton. If he thinks hacked information is fair game, then that's his prerogative. Marco Rubio disagrees (and, like the White House and Ben Sasse, did so before the election for those keeping score at home). But at the very least, he should use correct information.
Here's what happened, if the WikiLeaks documents are correct. Donna Brazile (before taking over as Chair of the DNC) gave Hillary Clinton a heads-up on a question at a primary debate hosted by CNN. That debate took place in Flint, Michigan, and the question was about lead in the water in Flint, something that had already been national news and was probably the reason the debate was held there in the first place. Clinton would have known that question was coming. Donna Brazile was wrong to formally confirm the fact, but even Donald Trump could have been prepared for that one without any kind of notice. This was more stupidity than treachery. It was extremely unethical and problematic, and shows how far some in Clinton's inner circle wanted to go to aid and protect her, but it doesn't even come close to being illegal.
Again, Donald Trump is either dumb or deliberately deceptive, and neither is good. The head of the executive branch of government conflating illegal and unethical, specifically as relates to his political opposition, is troubling and dangerous. Unlike some of his other conflations, this one is no laughing matter.