So the American intelligence community has declassified a report that supposedly shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump.
However, the report includes circumstantial evidence. They provided no concrete evidence that shows Putin sat down with his Kremlin cronies to orchestrated a campaign to make Hillary Clinton lose.
They also concentrated on RT, formerly known as Russia Today, with a brief mention of the phishing schemes that led to Wikileaks publishing emails from the DNC and Hillary campaign chair John Podesta.
(For the record, I’m not a Trump supporter and I hate Putin. But as a journalist, I like facts and not speculation, especially over an incident involving over our election.)
The intelligence community made a point about Putin’s public comments about the election because he “publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stateed policy to work with Russia and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine.” He also criticized Hillary.
That is one man. How about the 61 foreign leaders who publicly criticized Trump? Couldn’t you say that they tried to influence the campaign? Opposition came from leaders in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and China:
“Divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.” Former British prime minister David Cameron on Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban.”Trump is an irrational type.” Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei.”Yes [the election of Donald Trump would be dangerous]. [It] would complicate relations between Europe and the United States.” French President Francois Hollande.”I can only hope that the election campaign in the USA does not lack the perception of reality.” Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Trump’s use of the “America first” slogan.
Last March, Hillary told an audience at a town hall that she received messages from leaders (emphasis mine):
“I am already receiving messages from leaders,” Clinton told an Ohio audience at a Democratic presidential town hall on Sunday night.“I’m having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump.”—“But one argument that I am uniquely qualified to bring, because of my service as secretary of State, is what [Trump’s] presidency would mean to our country and our standing in the world.”
This gets me, though. The intelligence community put a huge emphasis on RT, but how many people does the channel actually reach? The Daily Beast reported this in 2015:
RT, the documents note, is not present in Nielsen ratings for the U.S. for 2012, which it says start with channels with an audience of 18 million households. Nor does it make cable news channels rankings, meaning that, according to the documents, “the average daily viewership of RT programs in the US does not reach [30,000] people.”“RT claims that ‘more than 100 million viewers in US cities receive the channel 24 hours a day via satellite and cable networks,’” the documents say. In reality that’s just the total population of homes where “through cable networks, one can theoretically receive RT in a package with hundreds of others of channels.”As of 2015, RT is still largely absent from cable news rankings.
The website for RT does not have the statistics that make me believe it has the power to reach people in America. According to Alexa, RT.com has a global rank of 280 and a mind blowing 546 in America.
I find it hard to believe that this little network had the power to influence an entire nation to turn against Hillary and vote for Trump.
Trump met with intelligence officials on Friday in a “constructive” meeting, but reiterated his stance that this Russian influence “had ‘absolutely no effect’ on the election.” But he said he would do what he could to stop cyberattacks:
“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” Mr. Trump said. “Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority.”
Speaker Paul Ryan said the report led him to believe the Kremlin “clearly tried to meddle in our political system,” but pointed out that “Trump won this election fair and square because he heard the voices of Americans who felt forgotten.”
Once again. Hillary Clinton lost this election because she was a horrible candidate and ran a horrible campaign.
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY