Thursday, September 12, 2019

Is the Putin wanted Trump to win another lie based on fake intelligence?

For years Democrats have been saying that the Intelligence Community(IC) had proof that Putin wanted Trump to win the 2016 election.

But now that story is coming apart.  Apparently the spy who told the US that Putin wanted Trump to win may have been a double agent or, if Russian claims are right, someone who didn't in fact have access to Putin.

Given that the IC swallowed the unverified and obviously false Steele dossier which was based on anonymous second and third hand sources it wouldn't be shocking that the IC took at face values a claim by a Russian that Putin wanted Trump to win.

Now it's true that the Russians could be lying about the spy's access to save face. The problem is that they've identified the spy as Oleg Smolenkov according to the NYT.  If he is the agent the CIA has been talking about then why is he living in a DC suburb under his own name.

At this point we can't know the truth with the information that's publicly available.

One thing we can know though; if in fact Putin favored Trump he's regretting it because Trump has been far tougher on Russia than Obama was, or Clinton who "reset" our relationship with Russia would have been.

Here's how Obama, with Hillary as his Secretary of State for part of the time, treated Russia:

1) Obama "reset" our relationship with Russia even though Russia continued to hold pieces of the country of Georgia that they had taken by force.

2) Obama let a Russian company get control of 20% of US Uranium reserves.

3) Obama canceled a missile defense system for Europe which was designed to prevent Iran from being able to blackmail the EU because Putin didn't like it.

4) Obama was caught telling a senior Russian official to tell Putin that after the election he, Obama, would be able to be more accommodating of what Putin wanted.

5) Obama refused to sell lethal aid to the Ukraine to fight off the Russian invasion.

6) Obama set up a deal with Iran, a Russian client in the Middle East, so that Iran would be able to develop nuclear weapons once Obama was out of office.

7) When the Russian client running Syria used chemical weapons against civilians Obama did nothing despite having proclaimed that to be a red line.  Instead he turned the problem over to the Russians who we now know allowed their client to retain some chemical weapons.

Now let's look at how Trump has treated Putin:

1) Got Germany to cancel a massive natural gas deal with Russia which cost Putin billions.

2) Got NATO to significantly increase defense spending.

3) Increased sanctions on Iran to get them to stop nuclear weapon development.

4) Bombed the Russian client's air base in Syria in response to the Syrian government using chemical weapons against civilians.

5) Significantly increased US defense spending.

6) Provided lethal aid to Ukraine to help them fight off the Russian invasion.

7) Has told Russia to get their troops out of Venezuela.

8) Has increased sanctions on Russian entities.


Clearly if Trump is Putin's pal Putin doesn't need enemies.


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