The Brookings Institution posted a review of the Mueller report’s findings about Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.
The Mueller report “is the most comprehensive account thus far of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. Alina Polyakova outlines what the report tells us about the tactics and intent of the information operations in particular and what we don’t know due to redactions.”
Polyakova describes the Russians’ adept use of social media, especially Facebook, to send fake and divisive messages. Their efforts were intended, above all, to damage the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Russian attack on our election and our democracy was remarkably successful.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Interestingly, the report, which I have been reading, details how the ads placed by Russian intelligence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, supported the whole Trump agenda–support for our “Confederate heritage,” guns, American isolationism, “secure borders,” etc. And it also tells how the Russians posed as citizens and right-wing interest groups and called for Trump rallies around the country, the first one being a pro-Trump, pro-Confederate heritage rally in 2015. And it also tells how a great many people in the Trump organization–Flynn, Kellyanne Conway, Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Trump himself rewteeted or otherwise spread on social media ads and other materials originating from Russian intelligence.
So, why did the Russians want, so badly, to see Trump become our president?
Disruption, chaos, polarization, undermining of US alliances and trade agreements. Trump was their useful idiot.
Have you seen this one dated 4-18-2019?
Ex-Nixon White House counsel: ‘Mueller report ‘more damning’ than Watergate.
John Dean, the former White House counsel for President Nixon, said Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was “more damning” than the Watergate report.
“I looked on my shelf for the Senate Watergate Committee report, I looked at the Iran Contra report. I also looked at the Ken Starr report,” Dean said on CNN’s “The Lead.”
“In 400 words, this report from the special counsel is more damning than all those reports about a president, this is really a devastating report.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439622-ex-nixon-white-house-counsel-mueller-report-more-damning-than
Part II of the Mueller report says, upfront, that Mueller and his team decided at the beginning of their work not “to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment” about whether “to initiate or decline a prosecution” of the President. They did this on the basis of a decision that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
So, those who were hoping that the report would result in indictment of the President had no chance of that happening. It was ruled out from the start. And far from being an exoneration of the President, the report lays out the evidence, and that’s all it does. It says, clearly, that the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel has determined both that “criminal investigation during a President’s term is permissible” and that “a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.”
So, the report doesn’t clear the President. It does exactly and only what it says it thought permissible at this time–it lays out the available evidence and draws no conclusion about whether that evidence is sufficient to warrant a prosecution for obstruction.
“They did this on the basis of a decision that ‘the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.’ ”
The flaw in this decision is the fact that this illegitimate (because he was elected with help from Russia), always-sitting (on his fat, flabby ass), tweeting-mad president is undermining the job and has no capacity or desire to perform his constitutionally assigned functions.
MAGA Man doesn’t even know what those constitutionally assigned functions are and he doesn’t have any desire to even attempt to learn.
Amendment 14:
Section 3.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
MAGA Man has given aid and comfort to the enemies o the United States several times since he lied when he took the Oath of Office every time he had sided and agreed with Putin or Kim while criticizing all of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies.
Every time MAGA Man attacks the media he is not supporting the Constitution of the United States — the 1st Amendment.
But it’s the DOJ’s theory that the President’s cabinet and Congress, not the Department of Justice, must make such determinations.
Then its time to ignore the DOJ’s theory and test it in the courts.
At one time, there was a theory that the Earth was flat.
At one time, there was a theory that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it.
The DOJ’s theory to let any President get away with alleged crimes is just like the two previous theories I mentioned. Time to reject that theory and go to court.
Comey already set a president for breaking a long-held theory and practice in law enforcement that you do not talk about an investigation before it is over.
Comey broke that theory/practice when he went public with the Clinton e-mail investigation while the investigation was still ongoing and that also helped elect the first illegitimate president in U.S. history.
MAGA Man is an illegitimate president because Russia helped elect him
MAGA Man is an illegitimate president because Comey broke with protocol and talked about on ongoing investigation while it was still going on — not once but twice.
MAGA Man is a criminal president because he has violated Section 3 of the 14 Amendment repeatedly since he lied taking the Oath of Office.
Thank you for the relevant reminder about Comey’s breaking with precedent. It’s also worth mentioning that the FBI kept the Russia investigation secret before the election, Obama was responsibly hesitant to go public, and McConnell refused to sign on to a statement about Russian interference.
I consider George W. Bush to have been an illegimate president due to his brother’s disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters, a substantial majority of whom would have voted for Al Gore, in a state he “won” by 537 votes to swing the election.
Finally, I used to believe that T***p violated his oath of office the instant he mumbled it. Then I realized that the oath includes the phrase “to the best of my ability,” and I revised this judgment.
Agreed, and that means Trump is Illegitimate President Number Two.
Comey should never have announced an Investigation in which there was no indictment. That broke precedent. He also broke Justice Department rules by re-opening the Email Investigation 10 days before the election. Federal officials are not supposed to meddle in elections, on their cusp. His announcement elected Trump. It was ironic that Trump fired the guy who delivered the election by his last minute intervention. Like it or not, Hillary was robbed by Comey.
Comey and Russia elected Trump. Not just Comey by himself. What Comey did ended up supporting what the Russians were already doing.
I have a comment in moderation. Not sure why. This seems so random, but it seems to happen whenever names of political figures are mentioned.
It is random, Bob, I just okayed your comment in moderation.
Thanks, Diane!
I sent in a putz alert to WordPress. Looks like the suggestion was accepted. 👹
I take that as a nod to my impressive virility, Greg.
🎤 drop! (don’t know the emoji for drop)
OF COURSE Russia tried to influence our elections!!! Every country does that to evey other country. We usually do it at the point of a gun, so I find it quaint that da Russkies used a dozen or so internet trolls with limited English skills.
If you really want to know who controls our elections, you have to look further south than Russia. Try Israel and/or Saudi Arabia.
Russia didn’t “try” to influence the election. They did influence the election. Without help from the Russian’s, Trump would not be the president of the United States today.
Excellent point, Lloyd. A very good case can be made that the election was so close that without this enormous illegal effort on the part of the Russian intelligence services, the outcome of the election would have been quite different. After all, Don the Con lost the popular vote. His margin of victory in the Electoral College was slim. Without all this targeting Russian campaigning and the rallies that the Russians organized via their fraudulent identities, things would have been very different. Our election was stolen. This is, I think, the biggest scandal in US political history.
But Dienne, this use of hacking and fake social media accounts by fake citizens, often ones whose identities were stolen and co-opted, is altogether new and quite illegal under national and international alw.
law
The both-siderism of which I write below includes every comment ever made by our sneering commentator.
Interestingly, both Putin and Xi Jinping gave talks to their respective annual Party congresses this past year on the subject of cyperwar and how it was the way of the future. Well, in 2015-16, Russia engaged in an undeclared war against democratic processes in the United States and used extraordinarily illegal means to do so. All this is detailed in the Mueller report. This is unprecedented and indefensible. Surely, Dienne, you don’t think that what the Russians did there was OK.
cx: cyberwar
And read the report, Dienne. It wasn’t “a dozen internet trolls.” Russian made use of an extensive network of experience intelligence agents, and many of the ads and calls for rallies and so on that they disseminated through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were highly targeted using sophisticated data mining analytics and very professionally designed to have maximum impact on target audiences. This was a highly sophisticated, highly coordinated, well funded, professional intelligence operation.
The Russian campaign to elect Donald Trump President of the United States followed all the rules of a propaganda campaign during a war, to demonize the enemy and Hillary Clinton was that enemy.
What Russia did to elect MAGA Man was an undeclared declaration of war against the United States.
MAGA Man is Russia’s weapon in their undeclared social media war against the U.S.
I am currently reading an EXCELLENT book, Travelers in the Third Reich by British author Julia Boyd. The book is filled with incredible anecdotes that she weaves together with immense skill. And it’s hard not to impose the present on so many of her observations. I could pick so many examples, but this quote I read this morning from a member of a Quaker delegation who naively went to Germany in the aftermath of Kristallnacht struck me as I consider the discussion above:
“The must be no illusions in our mind about this venture of ours. The difficulties of space, of distance, of stubborn ocean stretches we can probably overcome. Mountains can be tunnelled; they can be even be removed. Matter is no doubt stubborn, but nothing in the universe is so utterly unconquerable as a mind possessed by a set of ideas that have become entrenched and sacred…”
With all the lack of proportion, utter lack of decency, veiled threats of violence, and contempt for the principles upon which this nation was founded and has endured that we have experienced in the past couple of decades, and watching them distilled into a toxic resin over the past three, nothing dismays me more than how these things “have become entrenched and sacred” within the Republican Party and its devout followers have devolved to become a cult. And the aiding and abetting of journalism, or what passes for it these days, and cultural and religious institutions who either passively accept or aggressively promote both-siderism of our political and policy debates is the worst symptom of it all.
Beautifully written and argued, Greg.
Mother Jones’s David Corn reminds us of an indisputable and ongoing way in which T***p is acting in Russia’s interests and against the U.S.’s: Denying that Russia interfered in our 2016 election, and doing nothing to prevent Russia from interfering again.
Putin must be very pleased. he got his money’s worth.
What never ceases to amaze me is the incredible hypocrisy of the current Republican Party. So many of these Republicans like to talk all tough yet they never stop whining like babies. “Oh, the liberal media this….blah, blah blah”. Or “Hillary did that….yada, yada…puke.” And, so many of them have no backbone when it comes to standing up to Trump.
Also, somewhat incredible is the sheer scope of Russian attempts to undermine democracy worldwide. I was listening to the BBC world report driving to work recently and they had a story on about Russia’s plan to meddle in a presidential election held last year in Madagascar. Madagascar?? https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47830161/did-russia-meddle-in-magadascar-s-election
So, Trump’s got our country tied up in knots over his stupid-ass plan to build a border wall with Mexico. Meanwhile, Russia and China are thinking globally, engaging in a new “scramble for Africa”….and apparently the planet.
There was a time when the Republican Party thought in big terms about the world. I disagreed mightily with their vision for the future but at least they had a vision -not just hatred and a hankering for a fake past. The G.O.P. now has become the party of know-nothing dolts. And, it is dragging our entire nation down.
So, Trump’s got our country tied up in knots over his stupid-ass plan to build a border wall with Mexico. Meanwhile, Russia and China are thinking globally, engaging in a new “scramble for Africa”….and apparently the planet.
You absolutely nailed it, John. Yes, yes, yes. The Russians and the Chinese are long-term thinkers. They’ve managed to distract us with such stupid crap as arguments over Trumps ridiculous, useless wall. And meanwhile, they are forging ahead with well-thought-out, long-term plans.
Yes, we need to attempt to have decent relations with both Russia and China. But we also need to be very, very wary. When I look at the stupidity of our poltiics–at the fact that someone with the utter lack of qualifications of IQ45 could be elected President–I think, well the days of the American Empire are numbered. We were so easily manipulated in 2016. That doesn’t bode well for our future.
I don’t think Maga Man has an IQ of 45. How about a Minus 45 IQ? And his ability to reason critically and solve problems is less than zero.
MAGA Man does not have fluid intelligence (people with little book knowledge).
MAGA Man also doesn’t have any emotional intelligence – the ability to accurately read and respond to your own and others’ feelings.
All we have about MAGA Man’s IQ number is his claim that it is 156. He has never released the actual results of an IQ test if he ever took one just like he’s hidden any and all medical records about his health, and still refuses to release his tax records.
In fact, “Trump Has the I.Q. of an Inbred Tanning Bed, Says a Liberated Gary Cohn
The former White House adviser was “astounded” by the depths of the president’s stupidity, according to Bob Woodward’s new book.”
Of course, that the 45th president of the United States is an idiot is not exactly a new revelation. (Cohn has not publicly commented on any of Woodward’s reporting.) His first secretary of state characterized him as a “moron.” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to Woodward, told close associates that the president “had the understanding of ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ” Scott Pruitt essentially called him an imbecile “when it comes to things like the Constitution and rule of law.” Former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with him was “like trying to figure out what a child wants,” which feels like an insult to children. And of course, someone “purporting to represent the views” of Cohn sent an e-mail in April 2017 describing the president as “an idiot surrounded by clowns.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/trump-has-the-iq-of-an-inbred-tanning-bed-says-gary-cohn
The fact that Trump denies Russian meddling is a scandal.
Man, do those few words speak stacks of volumes!
It’s a scandal, but we’ve become inured to having every word that comes out of his mouth be a lie. President Pinocchio. Don the Con.