Russiagate Suddenly Becomes Bigger
Will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?
Philip Giraldi • February 20, 2018
It’s
hard to know where to begin. Last Friday’s indictment of 13 Russian
nationals and three Russian companies by Special Counsel Robert Mueller
was detailed in a 37 page document
that provided a great deal of specific evidence claiming that a company
based in St. Petersburg, starting in 2014, was
using social media to
assess American attitudes. Using that assessment, the company inter alia
allegedly later ran a clandestine operation seeking to influence
opinion in the United States regarding the candidates in the 2016
election in which it favored Donald Trump and denigrated Hillary
Clinton. The Russians identified by name are all back in Russia and
cannot be extradited to the U.S., so the indictment is, to a certain
extent, political theater as the accused’s defense will never be heard.
In presenting the document, Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General, stressed that there was no evidence to suggest
that the alleged Russian activity actually changed the result of the
2016 presidential election or that any actual votes were altered or
tampered with. Nor was there any direct link to either the Russian
government or its officials or to the Donald Trump campaign developed as
a result of the nine-month long investigation. There was also lacking
any mention in the indictment of the Democratic National Committee,
Hillary Clinton and Panetta e-mails, so it is to be presumed that the
activity described in the document was unrelated to the WikiLeaks
disclosures.
Those
of the “okay, there’s smoke but where’s the fire” school of thought
immediately noted the significant elephant in the room, namely that the
document did not include any suggestion that there had been collusion
between Team Trump and Moscow. As that narrative has become the very raison d’etre
driving the Mueller investigation, its omission is noteworthy.
Meanwhile, those who see more substance in what was revealed by the
evidence provided in the indictment and who, for political reasons,
would like to see Trump damaged, will surely be encouraged by their
belief that the noose is tightening around the president.
Assuming
the indictment is accurate, I would agree that the activity of the
Internet Research Agency does indeed have some of the hallmarks of a
covert action intelligence operation in terms how it used some spying
tradecraft to support its organization, targeting and activity. But its
employees also displayed considerable amateur behavior, suggesting that
they were not professional spies, supporting the argument that it was
not a government intelligence operation or an initiative under Kremlin
control. And beyond that, so what? Even on a worst-case basis, stirring
things up is what intelligence agencies do, and no one is more active in interfering
in foreign governments and elections than the United States of America,
most notably in Russia for the election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996, which
was arranged by Washington, and more recently in Ukraine in 2014. From
my own experience I can cite Italy’s 1976 national election in which the
CIA went all out to keep the communists out of government. Couriers
were discreetly dispatched to the headquarters of all the Italian right
wing parties dropping off bags of money for “expenses” while the Italian
newspapers were full of articles written by Agency-paid hacks warning
of the dangers of communism. And this all went on clandestinely even
though Italy was a democracy, an ally and NATO member.
Does
that mean that Washington should do nothing in response? No, not at
all. Russia, if the indictment is accurate, may have run an influencing
operation and gotten caught with its hand in the cookie jar. Or maybe
not. And Washington might also actually have information suggesting that
Russia is preparing to engage in further interference in the 2018 and
2020 elections, as claimed by
the heads of the intelligence agencies, though, as usual, evidence for
the claim is lacking. There has to be bilateral, confidential discussion
of such activity between Washington and Moscow and a warning given that
such behavior will not be tolerated in the future, but only based on
irrefutable, solid evidence. The leadership in both countries should be
made to understand very clearly that there are more compelling reasons
to maintain good bilateral working relations than not.
With
that in mind, it is important not to overreact and to base any U.S.
response on the actual damage that was inflicted. The indictment
suggests that Russia is out to destroy American democracy by promoting
“distrust” of government as well as sowing “discord” in the U.S.
political system while also encouraging “divisiveness” among the
American people. I would suggest in Russia’s defense that the U.S.
political system is already doing a good job at self-destructing and the
difficult-to-prove accusations being hurled at Moscow are the type one
flings when there is not really anything important to say.
I
would suggest that Moscow might well want to destroy American democracy
but there is no evidence in the indictment to support that hypothesis. I
particularly note that the document makes a number of assumptions which
appear to be purely speculative for which it provides no evidence. It
describes the Russian company Internet Research Agency as “engaged in
operations to interfere with elections and political processes.” Its
employees were involved in
“interference operations targeting the United States. From in or around 2014 to the present, Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”
The
theme of Russian subversion is repeated throughout the indictment
without any compelling evidence to explain how Mueller knows what he
asserts to be true, suggesting either that the document would have
benefited from a good editor or that whoever drafted it was making
things up. Internet Research Agency allegedly “conduct[ed] what it
called ‘information warfare against the United States of America’
through fictitious U.S. personas on social media platforms and other
Internet-based media.” The indictment goes on to assert that
“By in or around May 2014, the ORGANIZATION’s strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of ‘spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general’”
with a
“strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the name of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.”
Two company associates
“traveled in and around the United States, including stops in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, and New York to gather intelligence. After the trip, [they] exchanged an intelligence report regarding the trip. The conspiracy had as its object the opening of accounts under false names at U.S. financial institutions and a digital payments company in order to receive and send money into and out of the United States to support the ORGANIZATION’s operations in the United States and for self-enrichment. Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts, including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist. All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1349.”
Note
particularly the money laundering and for-profit aspects of the
Internet Research scheme, something that would be eschewed if it were an
actual intelligence operation. There is some speculation
that it all might have been what is referred to as a click-bait
commercial marketing scheme set up to make money from advertising fees.
Also note how small the entire operation was. It focused on limited
social media activity while spending an estimated $1 million on the
entire venture, with Facebook admitting to a total of $100,000 in total
ad buys, only half of which were before the election. It doesn’t smell
like a major foreign government intelligence/influence initiative
intended to “overthrow democracy.” And who attended the phony political
rallies? How many votes did the whole thing cause to change? Impossible
to know, but given a campaign in which billions were spent and both fake
and real news were flying in all directions, one would have to assume
that the Russian effort was largely a waste of time if it indeed was
even as described or serious in the first place.
And
apart from the money laundering aspect of the alleged campaign was it
even illegal apart from the allegations of possible visa fraud and money
laundering? If the Russians involved were getting their financial
support from the Moscow government then it would be necessary to
register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, but
if not, they would be protected by the Constitution and have the same
First Amendment right to express their opinions of Hillary Clinton on
blogs and websites while also associating with others politically as do
all other residents of the United States. Many of the commenters on this
Unz site are foreign and are not required either by law or custom to
state where they come from.
And, of course, there is one other thing. There always is. One major media outlet is already suggesting
that there could be consequences for American citizens who wittingly or
unwittingly helped the Russians, identified in the indictment as
“persons known and unknown.” A former federal prosecutor put it another
way, saying “While they went to great pains to say they are not
indicting any Americans today, if I was an American and I did cooperate
with Russians I would be extremely frightened…” Politico speculates that
“Now, a legal framework exists for criminal charges against
Americans…” and cites a former U.S. district attorney’s observation that
“Think of a conspiracy indicting parties ‘known and unknown’ as a Matroyshka doll. There are many more layers to be successively revealed over time.”
Under
normal circumstances, an American citizen colluding with a foreign
country would have to be convicted of engaging in an illegal conspiracy,
which would require being aware that the foreigners were involved in
criminal behavior and knowingly aiding them. But today’s overheated
atmosphere in Washington is anything but normal. Russia’s two major
media outlets that operate in the U.S., Sputnik and RT America, have
been forced to register under FARA. Does that mean that the hundreds of
American citizens who appeared on their programs prior to the 2016
election to talk about national politics will be next in line for
punishment? Stay tuned.
Philip
M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the
National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box
2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
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