Mueller today issued a series of new indictments.
In the course of describing how that works, media analysts have noted the history of the NSA investigations involving looking into Trump's ties with Russia.
It's been noted that the investigations of Trump, basically started in 2014.
In reality, they probably started in late 2013.
That was after the end of the 2012 election and after Trump had returned to the US after the Moscow beauty contest he had sponsored with cooperation of Vladimir Putin.
Here's the thing: the investigation has determined that Trump was engaged in questionable behavior in the months going into that pageant, and, indeed, New York State had an investigation in place as to Trump's New York-based business ties to illegal Russian banks.
The Russians showed, in the material that was turned up by the investigation, to have an interest in helping Trump win the Presidency as a way of getting revenge against Putin's enemies in US politics, shortly after the end of his pageant.
That said, it's interesting that the Russians also saw an opening for Trump--a path in which he could OBTAIN THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION.
The Republican Primary election of 2016 was a massively confused affair. The field was overly crowded, and some were going to have to go. But it was clear there were some major names out there, that would have to go down before Trump's campaign for the GOP nomination. could win.
Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Marco Rubio. Others, such as Carly Fiorna, seemed unlikely if put up against Hillary or Joe Biden, to win the General.
However, a strong ticket could be put together composed of Kasich and Rubio. Both were from swing states, and a new effort at pulling in moderates and minorities, might have put them over. As a white female candidate, Hillary had a slightly different set of voters than Obama had, and so presented a different kind of threat.
In states in which the Democrats had been hard hit by Republican voter disenfranchisement efforts, minority voters had already dropped dramatically between 2008 and 2012. Obama lost ground in some areas due to that effort, and because of the subsequent drop in minority turnout due to disenfranchisement, lost some Electoral votes.
He lost the district vote in Nebraska, and also lost Indiana and North Carolina. His larger Popular vote figure also dropped.
But the GOP managed to get a new Supreme Court ruling, the Shelby ruling, that greatly enhanced voter disenfranchisement efforts in heavily minority districts and precincts. As a result, Obama's Party took a "shellacking" in 2014, and it was clear minority disenfranchisement would be a threat to any candidate trying to repeat Obama's appeals to minority voters.
But, Hillary's campaign had displayed a strength-- in the aftermath of such efforts-- which the Republicans had been unable to counter as of yet at that point, in that, with white female voters pulling for her in some areas, states Obama had lost might have some prospect of going BACK to Hillary from the GOP's result in 2012.
One key state in that regard, was North Carolina.
While the African-American vote has been severely limited by the new GOP-backed voter repression efforts there, Hillary had a constituency more resistant to being limited by GOP efforts.
It may be that the Russians knew it would take more than just the GOP's vote suppression efforts in NC to turn the state. And, Russia had been wanting to make a movement that would display to America that it could impact on our elections, to counter any military moves we might be making in Eastern Europe. They began to dabble in--and talk about dabbling in--US electrical systems.
On election night 2016, there was a power failure in a key county in NC and it had a suspicious quality.
Media at the time attempted to look into the outcome.
They tried to ask questions, and tried to follow the actions of election officials in GOP dominated NC as to whether they would look into the causes of the power failures and equipment shutdowns.
No investigation occurred. Media questions went unanswered.
Another state appeared to have unusual election difficulties on election night:
Ohio.
As with NC, last minute events occurred on election night that may have effected the outcome.
Ohio had recently purchased and gotten operational, a brand new, state of the art, election and internet hacking detection system. It was designed to prevent and preclude the very kind of internet hack on election equipment that occurred in November 2016.
Media made this observation. And it was touted as a major step forward in countering any Russian effort to hack key states.
But, on election night, for some mysterious reason, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State TURNED OFF THE NEW HACK PREVENTION EQUIPMENT.
Though it had been expensive, it was turned off before it could do its job.
Meanwhile, three close states were recounted--or, at least, an attempt to recount those states was attempted. But the state governments were largely not cooperative, although Pennsylvania's did its best.
But in the aftermath, it was clear from visual examination of ballots versus computer exam, that Hillary had actually carried WI's 10 Electoral votes by about 8800 votes.
Going on to the next state, MI, we now know key Russian operatives, including some who were indicted by Robert Mueller today, were emailing each other after the election about how they were taking key steps to "cover their tracks" in hacking OH and MI. State government in WI and MI was not cooperative, but there was limited cooperation in PA, although the federal judge appealed to by recounters was hostile to the effort and refused to extend any deadlines for PA's recount.
Meanwhile, in FL, such operatives also sent similar track - covering references in their post-election e-mail.
All in all, Hillary's unique ability to draw white female voters in numbers needed to offset the loss of minority voters to GOP disenfranchisement efforts, was a major problem for the Russians. They had a plan, but they required an insider in America to help cover their tracks with the media and voters in general.
Here's the thing Republicans should be seeing at this point: all the way back in 2014, Russia wanted to ensure Donald Trump was the GOP nominee in 2016. They had already put together that, to beat Hillary, who could overcome the GOP voter suppression effort in key states in her female turnout vote, they needed a candidate who would help cover up their hacking efforts.
That someone was Donald Trump. And so, they set out, BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION EVER STARTED, to ensure that Donald Trump would win the GOP nomination.
One by one, each leading Republican candidate against Trump, was made to fail to win their home state, thus destroying their credibility as candidates.
As early as 2014, the Russians started putting this thing together. Their first targets were not Democrats, but Republicans.
Wake up, Republicans! They aren't "coming for you next" as many of you are wont to say right now. THEY'VE ALREADY COME FOR YOU.
No comments:
Post a Comment