Have the Trumps been played by the Russians?
I'm pretty sure that they have. One thing that I actually believe from Trump Jr's account is that nothing was revealed at the meeting with the Russian lawyer. If you assume that Russia was behind the DNC hack, why would they choose to leak information that way? A clear and unencripted email chain leads to a meeting in which someone linked to the Russian Government hands over a USB to the dumb frat-boy son of a Presidential candidate? There is no way that the Russian secret services would be that slack and they could have just sent it to Wikileaks anyway. They didn't need collusion from the Trump family to damage Clinton and the only purpose of that meeting would be to publicly embarrass the Trump clan.
The Russian Government still have plausible deniability over the hacks in a legal sense because no concrete proof has been made public. Dumbass Jr himself may also have legal deniability but this all adds to the shambolic multi-scandal nature of the current Presidency.
Russia could be seen to have three objectives by what are assumed to be their actions:
1) Stop the Putin hostile Hillary Clinton from becoming President.
2) Install a President who Russia could work with and possibly blackmail.
3) Damage America's reputation internationally so it is a less dominant geo-political position.
For Russia the current situation is a win-win. If Trump stays he will be a damaged President and will always be fighting scandals. If he goes then it will be confirmation that Russia was able to influence an American Presidential election. It is entirely possible that Russia leaked details of the emails and the meeting themselves to crank up the scandal. You can even speculate that this may be in retaliation for Trump's strong-arm turn against Assad in Syria.
No legal proof has come forward about Russian involvement and it needs to if the US agencies have anything more concrete than that which they have already released. If not then this crazy and messy show will keep rolling on for months and years to the detriment of important and substantive issues.
The Russian Government still have plausible deniability over the hacks in a legal sense because no concrete proof has been made public. Dumbass Jr himself may also have legal deniability but this all adds to the shambolic multi-scandal nature of the current Presidency.
Russia could be seen to have three objectives by what are assumed to be their actions:
1) Stop the Putin hostile Hillary Clinton from becoming President.
2) Install a President who Russia could work with and possibly blackmail.
3) Damage America's reputation internationally so it is a less dominant geo-political position.
For Russia the current situation is a win-win. If Trump stays he will be a damaged President and will always be fighting scandals. If he goes then it will be confirmation that Russia was able to influence an American Presidential election. It is entirely possible that Russia leaked details of the emails and the meeting themselves to crank up the scandal. You can even speculate that this may be in retaliation for Trump's strong-arm turn against Assad in Syria.
No legal proof has come forward about Russian involvement and it needs to if the US agencies have anything more concrete than that which they have already released. If not then this crazy and messy show will keep rolling on for months and years to the detriment of important and substantive issues.
41-45, M
