The
bipartisan support Mueller’s appointment received is even more
telling given that he is the definition of a Washington insider. The
power elites across the political spectrum seemed to trust him to,
above all, protect their position at the head of the table.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
2 - A “show” indictment with something for everybody
The
indictment released last Friday really did have “something for
everybody,” as McAdams noted. The indictment itself details an
effort by Russian nationals to “defraud the United States
impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the
government […] for the purpose of interfering with the U.S.
political and electoral processes.”
The
establishment-left widely praised the indictment as the indictment
asserted that the Russians charged “were instructed […] to use
any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and
Trump […]),” lending support the one of Clinton’s many
“What Happened” narratives. The establishment-right was
similarly pleased, as it “put Russia on notice.”
The
president and his supporters also applauded the indictment because it
showed no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign, and crowed
that the current administration had been vindicated of the accusation
that Trump and/or his campaign had knowingly worked with a foreign
government to alter the outcome of the election.
Partisan
politics aside, there are many interesting facets of the indictment
that have largely been glossed over by the mainstream press. Chief
among these is the fact that no evidence was presented that shows
that the Russian nationals were acting at the behest of the Russian
government. They were foreign nationals who, as some have pointed
out, were making internet memes and social media groups prompted by
an economic motivation as opposed to having been motivated by a
Russian intelligence operation to interfere in the U.S. political
process.
Furthermore,
journalist Adrian Chen, who in 2015 investigated the so-called
“Russian troll farm” at the center of the indictment, has noted
that its operations were unsophisticated and “ineffective,” and
that its employees “have a bare grasp of the English language.”
Also noteworthy is the fact that Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein noted that the “troll farm’s” efforts did not affect
the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, buoying Chen’s
claims of the group’s ineffectiveness.
In
addition, none of the 13 Russian nationals named in the indictment
will ever face trial in the U.S. — meaning that Mueller and his
team will never need to prove their case against them, as the
evidence laid out in the indictment will never be scrutinized in a
legal setting. Thus, the American public is unlikely to ever know if
this recent indictment is fact-based or not. As McAdams pointed out,
“prosecutors often lie and they may be lying here.”
Other
criticisms of the indictment include the fact that, of the ads and
social media campaigns allegedly produced by the Russian nationals,
many were aired after the election and 25 percent were never seen at
all — while some included content promoting Hillary Clinton,
progressive causes like Black Lives Matter and even puppies.
Source,
links:
Related:
Comments
Post a Comment