“He looked at me like I was stupid, I’m not stupid” – from Hamilton the Musical
There’s a lot of misinformation and outright lies in politics today. Whether we call it “business as usual” or “fake news,” it often makes it feel like there is no way to discover the truth. But some tales are so fabulous, so ridiculous, that they aren’t really attempts at misinformation. They are just insults.
CrowdStrike
Lets start with the fundamental conspiracy of the “Giuliani” set. It states that Hillary Clinton, through the Democratic National Committee, organized Ukrainian officials to attack the US elections and get her elected President. This is based on the tenuous connection of a co-founder of the computer protection company CrowdStrike, Dimitri Alperovitch. He was born in Russia (not Ukraine). Supposedly he was connected to a Ukrainian oligarch, Viktor Pinchuk. That connection: Aperovitch, along with his role at CrowdStrike, is also a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, a global think tank. Pinchuk is a major donor to the Atlantic Council.
That’s the entire link. According to Giuliani, Pinchuk used his financial influence (that he doesn’t have) to get CrowdStrike and the DNC to attack the US elections, hack the DNC, and leak the DNC emails in the 2016 election. He then says that CrowdStrike “spoofed” evidence that Russia hacked the American election.
Not only is Giuliani pushing this idea, but so is Russian Intelligence. It not only creates confusion that benefits the Trump Administration, but it lets Russia off the hook for interfering in the 2016 elections.
Ukrainian View
In addition, Giuliani points to the Clinton “support” of the Ukrainian government during the election as evidence of this conspiracy. Of course the facts for Ukraine are different. Hillary Clinton took a much stronger stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and theft of the Crimean Province. Donald Trump seemed to be willing to allow Russia to maintain possession of that strategic location. Ukrainian leaders would certainly support the candidate that opposed Russia’s invasion.
Add that to Giuliani’s characterization of the US Embassy in Kyiv as the “Clinton Headquarters – Kyiv” because of embassy cooperation with a US citizen and former DNC attorney with the hunger-inducing name of Alexandra Chalupa. Chalupa helped get evidence of Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s corrupt activity to the US media. When the press asked the Embassy about that evidence, they were directed to Chalupa. That’s it. But Giuliani uses that cooperation as proof that the Embassy was biased, and at the heart of the Ukraine conspiracy against Trump.
Defying Logic
The social media campaign waged in the 2016 campaign clearly benefited Donald Trump’s candidacy. The concept that the DNC arranged to hack itself, and then drip out it’s own emails to the demise of the Clinton campaign, is ludicrous.
I’m a Democrat. We Democrats are capable of doing foolish things. I was a Democrat when Senator Gary Hart, leading the race for the Presidential nomination, dared the press to find out about his illicit affair. They did. I was also a Democrat when Bill Clinton had sex with an intern in the halls of the White House.
But while I can point to Democrats who made incredibly poor personal choices, I don’t think the Democratic National Committee would wage war against itself in the middle of the 2016 campaign. I can believe that the DNC was biased against the Bernie Sanders candidacy in 2016, but I don’t think it hacked itself and leaked it’s own emails to destroy the Clinton candidacy. It not only defies logic: but we aren’t that stupid.
Insurance Policy
The second conspiracy theory is that the FBI conspired to destroy the Trump Campaign and insure a Clinton victory in 2016. This hallucination is based on the private text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and Department of Justice Attorney Lisa Page.
Strzok was the agent in charge of the FBI’s investigation into contacts between Russian Intelligence and the Trump Campaign, called “Crossfire Hurricane”. The FBI was warned by the Australian Ambassador to the UK that a Trump operative, George Papadopoulos, had prior knowledge of the DNC hacking and the Clinton emails.
Papadopoulos got this information from Paul Mifsud, a known Russian operative. In addition the FBI was getting information about Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, also linked with Russian intelligence. And finally a third Trump advisor, Carter Page, had already been connected to a Russian “spy ring” in New York.
Crossfire Hurricane
“Crossfire Hurricane,” was vetted to the highest levels of the FBI, including Director Comey and Assistant Director McCabe. The Clinton email investigation was publicly announced, both when Comey determined that there was no crime committed, and then when he reopened the investigation two weeks before the election. But the FBI made no mention of “Crossfire Hurricane” either during the election or afterwards. It didn’t come out until Congressional hearings in March of 2017.
Strzok did have an “insurance policy,” the existence of “Crossfire Hurricane”. A single leak to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or CNN would have had a dramatic impact on the 2016 election, a choice determined by less than 78,000 votes out of almost 130 million. He didn’t use it. Comey could have stood in front of the press, as he did with the Clinton investigation in July of 2016, and announced the investigation. He didn’t either.
If Strzok, Comey and McCabe conspired to stop the Trump candidacy, they had everything they needed to do it. But they didn’t. So when they accused of having “the insurance policy” there is that fatal flaw. They didn’t use it.
Angry Democrats
And then there were the thirteen, or seventeen, or eighteen “Angry Democrats,” the lawyers on the Mueller investigation team. Trump supporters claim that those lawyers were biased against the President, and therefore the Mueller Report was unfair towards him.
But reality again pushes back against this “theory”. First, Mueller himself was apolitical, even though he was a registered Republican. And second, you have the top prosecutors in the nation, all “Angry Democrats,” investigating for almost two years. They didn’t “close the deal” of Trump/Russian conspiracy, despite all of the evidence showing that it occurred. They had to settle for the Trump argument that the campaign wasn’t organized enough, good enough if you will, to conspire with anyone.
If they were “Angry Democrats,” they set aside their political biases to do a solid investigation. If they erred, the did so in favor of the President, Donald Trump. At several critical decision points, the investigation didn’t act like “Angry Democrats,” but like cautious Federal lawyers investigating the President of the United States.
Not Stupid
So Democrats attacked social media and hacked their own computers to rig the 2016 election for their candidate. The FBI rigged a counter-intelligence investigation to prevent Donald Trump from winning the election. And when he did win, despite these efforts, thirteen or seventeen or eighteen of our finest Democratic Prosecutors spent two years trying to impeach Donald Trump.
And none of it worked. So if you follow all of the conspiracy theories against the Presidency of Donald J Trump, you must reach the following conclusion: Democrats are really, really stupid.
We’re not. And if you fall for this nonsense and buy into these fabrications, you should ask another question.
How stupid are you?
