Trump Was Not A Russian Asset. Here's The Proof.
Irresponsible advocates for the Democrat party have destroyed journalistic credibility in this country. William Saletan of Slate adds another grain of sand to the heap.
In a March 18, 2021 piece titled A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset, Saletan claims former President Trump "was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States." The article cites a new "bombshell" report, spearheaded by Trump nemesis Robert Mueller and the Intelligence Community, which says Russia attempted to interfere in the 2020 election.
There were meetings, including the infamous meeting in Trump Tower, and plenty of emails, but no clear-cut evidence that Russia's attempts to sway the elections in 2020 and 2016 had any impact. There was "less than $200,000 spent on advertising" on Facebook by Russian special interests. Furthermore, Russian activists help organize pro-Trump AND anti-Trump rallies in hopes of flatlining American's trust in the election process.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2018:
Rod Rosenstein: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the election." pic.twitter.com/xwSF6wGjVR
— Axios (@axios) February 16, 2018
Let us not be so naïve. Foreign entities have interfered with United States elections for years.
The Vietnamese interfered in the 1968 Presidential election, where Nixon supposedly met with Anna Chan Chennault, a confidante of South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu, in an attempt to outmaneuver Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey into the White House.
In 2012, Chinese hackers attempted to hack emails from both the Obama and Romney campaigns and successfully breached into the Twitter accounts of The New York Times and The Washington Post. This led to the Associated Press falsely tweeting about bombings outside of the White House and a subsequent stock market tumbling.
In 2008, Obama and McCain's campaigns were subject to "sophisticated" hacker attacks by foreign entities. Barack won, which means no one mentioned it again. If McCain had won...
Daniel Vajdich, a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan organization to help the U.S. engage politically with other nations, published an article in 2018 titled Trump's Russia Policy Is Better Than Obama's Was. Vajdich states, "If you strip away his ostensibly chummy personal relationship with Putin, Trump's Russia policy has been drastically more assertive than that of his predecessor." He details Trump's approval of lethal military aid to Russia's enemy Ukraine, his closures of Russian consulates in San Francisco and Seattle, and tripling defensive initiatives to deter Russian hostility in Europe (is that worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize?)
New Year's Day 2021, on CNN of all places, Fareed Zakaria echoed many of the same talking points:
"I think, in general, there isn't going to be as much difference as people imagine," Zakaria said. "The Biden folks are pretty tough on Russia, Iran, North Korea. You know, the dirty little secret about the Trump administration was that while Donald Trump clearly had a kind of soft spot for Putin, the Trump administration was pretty tough on the Russians. They armed Ukraine. They armed the Poles. They extended NATO operations and exercises in ways that even the Obama administration had not done. They maintained the sanctions. So I don't think it will be that different."
Some reports suggest Trump did these actions reluctantly, but Vajdich stated, "It is hard for me to believe that he was dragged kicking and screaming through each and every one of these decisions."
Either way, Trump being a Russian puppet is more fake news.
