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   From: gop@sgmail.com   
      
   Will learning Russian soon be mandatory for all GOP politicians and   
   operatives?   
      
      
      
   U.S. Intelligence Says Republicans Are Working With Russia to Reelect   
   Trump   
   By Jonathan Chait   
      
      
   Two weeks ago, William Evanina, director of the United States National   
   Counterintelligence and Security Center, published a somewhat vague   
   warning about various forms of foreign interference in the upcoming   
   election. On Friday, he followed up with a more direct and incriminating   
   one, specifically warning that Russia is working to help reelect Donald   
   Trump. Even more important is what this warning unmistakably implies: that   
   Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are actively cooperating with   
   Russia’s campaign.   
   My Week In New York   
      
   A week-in-review newsletter from the people who make New York Magazine.   
      
   Trump obviously tends to respond with rage at the suggestion that Russia   
   wants him to win, let alone that he is accepting the assistance. So   
   Evanina’s summary delicately surrounds the revelations about Trump and   
   Moscow with superficially balancing material. The report highlights three   
   countries that want to influence the election: Russia, China, and Iran.   
   The report notes that the latter two want Trump to lose, while Russia   
   wants him to win.   
      
   This seems intended to let Republicans claim that there is foreign   
   interference on both sides. And it’s true, as far as it goes.   
      
   But the comparisons end there. What is China doing to defeat Trump? Its   
   government has “grown increasingly critical of the current   
   Administration’s COVID-19 response, closure of China’s Houston Consulate,   
   and actions on other issues.” And Iran’s efforts “probably will focus on   
   on-line influence, such as spreading disinformation on social media and   
   recirculating anti-U.S. content.”   
      
   In others words, Iran and China are undermining Trump by criticizing him   
   in public remarks, possibly including some mean tweets.   
      
   Russia’s efforts to help Trump include all that. In addition, the   
   statement notes, “pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is   
   spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked   
   phone calls — to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the   
   Democratic Party.”   
      
   Derkach and his Russian allies despise Biden, who spearheaded the   
   administration’s efforts to reform Ukraine, rein in its oligarchs, and   
   diminish Russian influence. They have attempted to depict Biden’s reform   
   efforts as a corrupt plot to enrich his son Hunter.   
      
   Derkach has been working openly with Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. None   
   of this is a secret. Here are the two of them meeting in Kiev in December:   
      
   Giuliani told the Washington Post earlier this summer that Derkach   
   “doesn’t seem pro-Russian to me.” In case that ruse was fooling anybody,   
   U.S. intelligence has now officially described Derkach as an organ of   
   Russian political interference.   
      
   Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee are   
   holding hearings in an attempt to substantiate this charge — or, more   
   realistically, to insinuate it. They have produced no evidence to advance   
   their charge. The Russians have given Republicans stolen tapes of secret   
   conversations Biden held with Ukrainians during his tenure as vice-   
   president, and pro-Trump media outlets have hyped up the material, but   
   nothing they have is inconsistent with the narrative that mainstream news   
   organizations found. Biden was working to clean up Ukraine.   
      
   Senate Republicans tried to be cagey about their activities. After pro-   
   Russian Ukrainians said they’d passed materials on to Republican   
   officials, a Johnson staffer told NBC News in July that it was “‘false’   
   the committee has received any ‘oppo,’ or opposition research, without   
   responding directly to whether that covers any materials from foreign   
   sources.”   
      
   The Washington Post reported that Homeland Security Committee chairman Ron   
   Johnson received secret documents from Ukrainians. And former Giuliani   
   associate Lev Parnas has confessed to putting Devin Nunes, the top   
   Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and perhaps Trump’s most   
   energetic defender on all things Russia, in touch with one of the   
   Ukrainians releasing documents in the United States.   
      
   There is hardly any secret to what they’re up to. Johnson says he plans to   
   release his report on Biden in September. It hardly matters if the   
   information Russia gives him actually substantiates his allegations, or   
   even whether it is authentic. The obvious plan is to splash some headlines   
   into news screens in the heat of the campaign that seem to connect Biden   
   to some kind of wrongdoing.   
      
   In reality, it is not a scandal about Biden at all. It’s a scandal about   
   Republican cooperation with a Russian propaganda campaign.   
      
   What makes Evanina’s statement on Friday so significant is that it makes   
   clear that the passing of information, real or otherwise, from various   
   Ukrainian figures to various Trump allies is part of a Russian-directed   
   scheme to help Trump win. Republicans could tell Russia that Russian-   
   controlled media are free to say anything they want, but Republicans   
   aren’t going to launder their propaganda for them. Instead, they are doing   
   everything in their power to exploit it.   
      
   Update: The unanswered question of why Evanina followed his first, vague   
   statement with a second, more specific one has an answer. On Saturday   
   morning, the New York Times Magazine? published a long, devastating story   
   by Robert Draper about Trump’s politicization of intelligence. Draper’s   
   reporting forced Friday night’s release, which directly acknowledged   
   Russia’s active preference to help Trump win.   
      
   Draper’s story also helps contextualize the essentially decorative   
   mentions of China and Iran. Intelligence officials are terrified of   
   enraging Trump by confirming that Russia wants him to win, even though the   
   conclusion is obvious. If you want to understand why officials added   
   references to China and Iran to create the illusion of balance — even   
   though those two countries don’t seem to be taking any steps to help   
   Biden, and Biden certainly isn’t cooperating with them — Draper’s   
   narrative explains the intense pressure they’re facing.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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