If there is one lesson both the United States and the UK have learned since 2016, it’s that a controversial election won by a narrow margin of votes can be disastrous. Theresa May’s government has seen a tumultuous fallout since the Brexit vote and in America, the very foundations of democracy have been shaken to the core by the election of Donald Trump — which is why it is fascinating, to say the least, that more evidence has come to light that both elections were manipulated, and in concert, by a mere handful of players with right-wing nationalist philosophies: to wit, Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, British banker Aaron Banks, and not so far out there in the shadows, Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin. New Yorker:
Emma Briant, an academic expert on disinformation at George Washington University, has unearthed new e-mails that appear to reveal the earliest documented role played by Bannon in Brexit. The e-mails, which date back to October of 2015, show that Bannon, who was then the vice-president of Cambridge Analytica, an American firm largely owned by the U.S. hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, was in the loop on discussions taking place at the time between his company and the leaders of Leave.EU, a far-right nationalist organization. The following month, Leave.EU publicly launched a campaign aimed at convincing British voters to support a referendum in favor of exiting the European Union.
Leave.EU was the brainchild of UK financier Aaron Banks. Refresh your recollection of Banks. He has a Russian-born wife, a vanity license plate, “X MI5 SPY,” and he spent over eight million British pounds to finance the Brexit referendum, the largest donation in British campaign history. Russia tantalized him with opportunities in gold and diamond mines, and in consideration of that, Banks acted as a pass through for funds coming from Russia and successfully financed Brexit on its behalf. Then Banks met with the newly elected Trump, also in 2016, and then again right after that with Russian ambassador to Britain Alexander Yakovenko, and so on and so forth. The paw of Putin is easily found in both 2016 election interference and Brexit. New York Times, June 29, 2018:
“From what we’ve seen, the parallels between the Russian intervention in Brexit and the Russian intervention in the Trump campaign appear to be extraordinary,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
“The Russians were apparently dangling gold mines and diamond mines and financial incentives behind one of the largest backers of Brexit,” he added. […]
On Nov. 12, 2016, Mr. Banks met President-elect Trump in Trump Tower. Upon his return to London, Mr. Banks had another lunch with the Russian ambassador where they discussed the Trump visit.
Now, new emails have been unearthed which show that Banks, who was in charge of the Leave.EU campaign, met with Cambridge Analytica executives in 2015 to discuss what Banks called a “two-stage process” that would “get CA on the team.”
Banks wrote, “It’s clear that major donors are sitting on the fence, but we aim to do something about that.” Banks returns to the topic later in the note, adding, “We would like CA to come up with a strategy for fund raising in the states and engaging companies and special interest groups that might be affected by TTIP”—the pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
He suggested that Cambridge Analytica, which boasted of having access to two hundred and thirty million Americans’ voter-registration data, as well as other personal information, could be solicited “to raise money and create SM [social media] activity.” The following day, a Cambridge Analytica staffer sent an e-mail back to Banks, again with Bannon included on the chain, suggesting that the firm was on board with the idea of developing a proposal that would include “US-based fundraising strategies.”
Two campaigns, Brexit and Trump, both with far-right nationalist backers, relying on the same social media company and some of the same advisers, “set off alarm bells on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Damian Collins, a member of Parliament, and chair of its Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which held an inquiry into fake news, told the Observer, which has broken much of the news about Cambridge Analytica in the U.K., that the new e-mails “suggest that the role of Bannon and Mercer is far deeper and more complex than we realised. There’s a big question about whether Mercer’s money was used in the Brexit campaign and it absolutely underscores why Britain needs a proper Mueller-style investigation. There are direct links between the political movements behind Brexit and Trump. We’ve got to recognise the bigger picture here. This is being coordinated across national borders by very wealthy people in a way we haven’t seen before.”
The two investigations into Brexit and the 2016 election have become progressively interwoven and that makes complete sense, given the cast of characters involved.
The role of the Russian Ambassador to the U.K., Alexander Yakovenko, has reportedly been the subject of interest both to Mueller’s investigators and to those in the U.K., who have examined his relationship to Banks. The role of Nigel Farage, the former leader of the far-right, Euroskeptic U.K. Independence Party, who has been an ally of Bannon and Trump, has also reportedly stirred the interest of investigators in both countries, especially after he was spotted in 2017 leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, in which Julian Assange has taken refuge. Assange’s media platform, WikiLeaks, published many of the e-mails stolen by Russia from the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election season.
Nigel Farage adores Steve Bannon — or at least he did when Bannon was in power. Farage gave Bannon a portrait depicting him as Napolean, which Bannon promptly hung in his West Wing War Room, next to his oversized white boards and his shit list.
Connect the dots: Vladimir Putin is the ultimate alt-righter. He wants to get rid of the gays, outlaw abortion, do away with multiculturalism, liberalism, and save the world for white nationalism and his particularly tweeked version of Christianity — which, however tweeked it is, is perfectly fine with the current crop of evangelical wingnuts, who support him fully. Mike Pence was kissing Putin’s ring recently at the ASEAN Summit.
Putin financed Brexit with Aaron Banks, and he stole the 2016 election, with the help of the Mercers, Cambridge Analytica, and Steve Bannon and Breitbart. Bannon had plans to expand Breitbart in Europe and Nigel Farage was on board for that as well, because Farage was expected to rise to power with Bannon’s help. Bannon’s best laid plans, however, gang aft agley, when the Mercers turned on him, Trump fired him, and finally Breitbart cut bait. But before all of that happened, Bannon was a busy little bee and out to help Vladimir Putin conquer the world.
Bear in mind above all else, that both Brexit and the 2016 election were decided in a manner advantageous to Putin and that is no coincidence. Also bear in mind Donald Trump Jr. boasting, “We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” and how Trump Sr. still hasn’t shown anybody a tax return.
The expected indictments of Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, and now, apparently, Julian Assange will reveal more of interest along these lines, it’s safe to bet. And before too long, Donald Trump will be dreaming of a plight Christmas, as visions of enough subpoenas to crash a sleigh start dancing in his head, in anticipation of the new Democratic House, seating in January, which is more than on top of this.
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Of course I am disturbed by Bannon’s shenanigans. But I wonder if what he and his like did is in any way illegal. They influenced large numbers of voters in the U.S. and U.K, but is that any different from any other campaign to influence voters’ minds?
Russia has its agenda and it should have no say in elections abroad, but at what point do their interests become an invasion of our sovereignty? I’m not sure. If Putin can find stooges to do his bidding, is he not entitled to support them, if not with money then with encouragement?
I didn’t like the lies the Russian trolls spread throughout our social media, but I have always believed most political ads are one short step from outright lies. If voters are too gullible and unengaged to sort out the truth from the fictions, won’t we always be vulnerable to well-financed publicity campaigns harvested from who knows where?
I could use some discussion on this topic.