Paul Manafort, campaign manager for Donald Trump, responded by questioning how the Democrats could accuse Russia of allegedly hacking them, while suggesting that an unencrypted server in Clinton’s home was secure.
Paul Manafort (@PaulManafort) July 24, 2016
The narrative was introduced over the weekend as Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook took to ABC and CNN, claiming that "experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." Mook refused to name his experts, or produce concrete evidence, when pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2016
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden strongly disagreed with the Russian hacker accusations, explaining that if Russian operatives had performed an exploit on the DNC, the NSA’s XKEYSCORE program would allow agents to easily follow the exfiltrated data. While the NSA normally does not release information, the XKEYSCORE program is public knowledge, and the compelling issue of an attempt by Russia to subvert a presidential election would be enough for the agency to come forward, explained Snowden.
Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 25, 2016
Despite the lack of evidence and political opportunism of the spin, mainstream media outlets have taken up the Clinton campaign’s narrative. Trump is accused by fringe pundits of being a secret agent for the Russians, and other headlines, including “Donald Trump Invites Putin to Invade Melania’s Hometown,” would make a propagandist blush.
On Monday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with security analyst Mark Sleboda to separate fact from fiction in exploring why mainstream media is dodging the real story: an inside job to disenfranchise millions of voters by stealing an election, and to examine whether Russia is in any way involved in the DNC hacks, as a means to benefit Trump.
What do the facts point to?
"I think that if you look through the headlines from the last two days from the Washington Post, New York Times, and Huffington Post, any of the major Western newspapers and television stations as well, you’ll find very little written about these leaked emails and their quite damning revelations by WikiLeaks," said Sleboda. "What you will find, instead, is an almost ubiquitous bullhorn-shouting deflection that accuses that these emails were given to WikiLeaks by Russian intelligence."
"There are a lot of problems with that. First it is avoiding the discussion and very damning details that the US primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton and that the DNC Chair and her staff deliberately conspired so the results of that election favored Clinton," said the security analyst.
"We’ll never know if they changed the outcome of the election because the primary is already over and there doesn’t seem to be any real accountability about this."
"The DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down, but she was immediately hired up, without a blush, brazenly, by the Clinton campaign, in effect rewarding her for conspiring on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and even President Obama came out with a statement praising Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her work for the Democratic Party," he said.
"I hope that the Bernie Sanders supporters react not lightly to this. Everything that they have done for the past year, all of the accomplishments that they made, has not only been disvalued by what happened, but has been spit on, by the hiring of Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the aftermath of this and the praise by President Obama," said Sleboda, suggesting a call to action is in order.
Is there any evidence that Russia is in fact behind the leaked emails?
"The other question, are the allegations that the DNC was hacked and that these emails were given to WikiLeaks by the Russians, in order, so the narrative goes, to embroil the US in political scandal and ensure that Trump wins the election," said Sleboda. "There are a lot of problems with this."
"From the technical details provided by the Democratic National Committee, that Russia was responsible for the leak, to the idea that is being propagated around by very mainstream sources, this is conspiracy theory," said the security expert.
"The news outlets outright say that Donald Trump is a Manchurian Candidate for Putin, those are the headlines from Jeffrey Goldberg, Paul Krugman, and the entire establishment media."
