If you haven’t seen this ABC scoop on election interference, take three minutes and get up to speed. In thirteen words, the story is that Russia’s narrative is Trump’s narrative and “acting” director Wolf is protecting them both.
EXCLUSIVE: DHS withheld publication of intelligence bulletin warning of Russian scheme to push “allegations about the poor mental health” of Joe Biden, per emails and document draft obtained by @ABC. @jonkarl has the full story. https://t.co/E2Af2hBsTz pic.twitter.com/Ro5yk3BkzQ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 2, 2020
In light of @jonkarl scoop about DHS Acting Sec. Wolf's office silencing intel document meant for state and local stakeholders regarding Russian misinformation, the reason for Ratcliffe stopping oral briefings is clearer.
This isn't about leaks. It's about protecting Russia. https://t.co/eI4tSfcxEa— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) September 2, 2020
According to the draft bulletin, analysts determined with “high confidence” that “Russian malign influence actors are likely to continue denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.”
“High confidence means what it sounds like — that they are highly confident that their assessment is accurate and they don’t use that language very often,” Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, told ABC News.
“We are hearing concerns being raised publicly that, in this administration, intelligence community reporting is being modified or blocked for political reasons — or to not anger the president,” said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former undersecretary for intelligence at DHS under President Barack Obama.
“By blocking information from being released that describes threats facing the nation,” Cohen continued, “it undermines the ability of the public and state and local authorities to work with the federal government to counteract the threat.”
The Republican party has lost all sense of decency if they’re going along with Russian interference to portray a statesman with a stutter as mentally defective. But that’s where they are in their desperation to hang onto power.
If the idiot gets re-elected we may have to learn Russian.
Nah, Mandarin. Every move Putin has made has actually been helping the Chinese more than either him or us.
Mandarin is probably easier that Russian. (I’ve heard even Russians have trouble with the language. It’s very complicated.)
Russian isn’t hard. It took me about a week there to crack the Cyrillic alphabet, and within three weeks, I was able to say a lot of simple, useful phrases. One thing that helped is it incorporates a lot of French words and I studied French in high school.
Huh…that’d go a long way to explain why French was the official court language of 19th Century Russia’s tsars.
Another reason to be unafraid of Trump if this is the best his Russian “help” has got. There was no Plan B after the Ukraine scheme imploded.
I cannot imagine all the loose ends that could be tied together if we had proper oversight to discover them. tRump is so inept, he’s probably giving us clues left and right if we knew where to look.
One certainty with Trump: wait long enough and he tell you what’s going on. His pathological need to brag guarantees it.
Exactly. And this is why, not a brag on the face of it, but a stupid “tell” bravado, Trump announced he hadn’t had a mini-stroke despite the news saying he had. But Trump told on himself after info on Mike Schmidt’s book came out, and before any reporter held forth on the stroke trope. Prob? Schmidt didn’t mention any health condition. Nary a one in his new book. Aha. So? Trump had some sort of TIA, but only one so they can hold forth with the lie that he hadn’t had a series of TIAs. Double Aha.
Perhaps Biden should do a press conference on stuttering. Could be inspiring for thousands of people and a slap in the face and brains to the current brain dead president
I think having that courageous 13-year-old at the convention talk about stuttering achieved that purpose.
That got major coverage and was far more interesting the a press conference.
Good point … maybe not a full presser, but definitely something to mention while on the campaign trail. People love folks who’ve overcome any sort of handicap and can speak openly about it. Stark contrast to Trumpler’s appalling mockery of a handicapped reporter.
Trump’s side talking about Biden’s health and fitness expresses more projection than a chain of IMAX multiplexes.