Some thoughts on Russian spying in the U.S.

Some thoughts on Russian spying in the U.S. These are my most recent. . .

Let’s focus on the concept of “useful idiots.” It is someone used as a tool that may be completely innocent or may be participatory in some degree in a spy operation but not fully aprised of the extent and/or scope of an operation. Ultimately the useful idiot can also become the “fall guy.”

My view: The operation put forth by the Russian FSB may have gotten some lucky breaks in particular the fact that so many people associated with the Trump campaign happened to have had connections to Russian businessmen and governmental officials which probably was just business and innocent of spying and collusion. (except for that meeting Donnie Jr. had) Thus, useful idiots.

What was the scope and goals of the operation, an operation that must have changed over the time and when did it start?

By mid 2015 there were many who were already vying to be the Republican Presidential candidate. It was pretty obvious by then that Hillary would be the Democratic candidate. Bernie hadn‘t formally announced until May/June 2015. And for a brief period he was also looked upon as a joke. Ted Cruz had already announced March 2015 and the rest of the Republican crowd followed. Trump announced June 2015. Russian intelligence was watching all this and I think after Trump entered the race and was gaining popularity by late summer that the scope of the operation widened but they also had their focus.

I believe the operation was first hatched by late 2014 after the Republicans got complete control of congress. It was clear that divisions between Rep/Dem, Conserv/Lib were very deep. The goal then was to further these divisions and sow chaos and discord in the U.S. around the Presidential election. Hillary was already under investigation by congressional Republicans for Benghazi and the FBI for her personal email server. So that was another benefit for the FSB to sow discontent. The operation would take advantage of that to help drive that wedge between her and angry skeptical American voters, namely Republicans and independents. It is supposed that because Putin hated Hillary that that was the focus. No, not the focus just another way into the operation to disrupt the election, to cause dissent, to discredit individuals and for people to lose trust in their government. The goals were much larger than just taking revenge on Hillary Clinton. The goal was to somehow destroy the U.S. association with allies in Europe. Would Russian intelligence do this? No, not completely. They were relying on the discord and chaos that would result.

In addition “fake” news was planted in stories throughout the internet and made to look like acceptable “real” news. So many of these fake stories ended up in credible media. Cable news programs helped by focusing on one distracting story after another. The same as they are doing today. (It’s what our viewers want to hear.) Hillary and Bernie fought it out for almost a year and supporters of both were more concerned about defeating the other candidate while Trump’s ascendency was treated as pure entertainment in both late night TV comedy shows and cable news. This was either a lucky break for the FSB or they helped by planting fake news to stir this pot. Certainly the DNC hack which was not fake news really stirred the pot. I believe that she did not get the vote she should have gotten as a result of this discord.

When it looked like Trump was going to swamp the field, other parts of the operation kicked in. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Jared Kushner and of course Donald Trump all had connections to Russians and the Russian government for various business dealings. (Useful idiots). When people like Jeff Sessions and Reince Priebus had meetings with the Russian ambassador, the FSB probably couldn’t contain themselves with joy. Wow look at all the connections! The seeds were now planted whereby the operation could be easily rolled up and blame would be aportioned to all of them. In other words it was your classic set up for fall guys.

I imagine that they were so surprised when Trump actually won. (As surprised as he was) I don’t think this was the part of the plan they were relying on. But fortune smiled upon them. The plan, according to me BTW, was that if Hillary was elected she’d be so discredited and the country would be so divided that it may have done far more damage than if Trump was elected. In fact the FSB could continue their operation to sow discord after a Hillary electoral win. The Democrats wouldn’t be investigating anything. Their candidate won. The Democrats would be working to continue the programs already in effect since Obama, wanting to figure out how to win back congress and wouldn’t have the time and couldn’t justify spending resources or using up political capital to do any investigating. Besides Republicans were in charge of congress and would be still hounding Hillary and voting to overturn Obamacare. I doubt there would have been rapprochement between HRC and most Republicans. And the Democrats would be trying to win over the electorate who didn’t vote for her. But just in case there was a problem the FSB still had their useful idiots to take the fall.

With Hillary as President, a woman, half the country would be even angrier than the half that is now angry with Trump. And who knows where that would have led. That is the half that owns most of the guns. Right now they think they are in catbird seat with Trump as their President.

I think ultimately that all of the investigations into Trump won’t turn up anything that he may have done that was illegal. I don’t think that he will be found to be in collusion nor did he engage anyone in Russian intelligence to help him try to win the election. He’s the kind of narcissist who thinks he is superior and doesn’t need any help and could do it all on his own. All he ever wanted from the Russians was to make money. He did use some of the hacking when he was told that Russians hacked into DNC and combined with the HRC e-mail problems and he used that information to his benefit. But he is still a useful idiot and also a fall guy by association. Of course I don’t pity him. Just don’t see him going to jail. He still might get pushed aside by the 25^th amendment for complete incompetence or if we’re lucky die from a stroke or heart attack.

But what does it all mean? One thing is don’t follow the cable news shows. They focus on one mostly irrelevant thing after another our useful idiot does for the short period of time that it is in vogue and then they move on. They have little regard for historical evidence, form no overall framework of ideas into which the little petty events can fit into. And they ignore all other issues to the detriment of their viewers, most of whom are in our demographic. The other thing is we may end up with nothing, nothing at all after all the investigating. If that is the case we could end up being in thrall to Trump and Trump like politicians for a long long time to come and we will be going backwards . . .