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Comment by trgv | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you generally...the uproar over twitter bots and fake news stories has struck me as a little silly.

At the same time, some Russian activities seem to have risen to the level of espionage. According to the article, Russian agents traveled around the US, posing as Americans, gathering information. The article also says that Russian agents organized and funded political rallies.

Making a big deal over that stuff is hypocritical given US actions abroad over the past hundred years, but that's a separate issue. Maybe the US shouldn't be interfering in the elections of other countries, but every country probably has rules like these: https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/ and every country seeks to minimize foreign influence on internal politics.

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> The article also says that Russian agents organized and funded political rallies.

I remember the one after the election in NYC that was supposedly set up by BLM against Trump, but turned out to be organized by Russians on Facebook

Which only goes to show that nobody is "safe". Their goal is to sow chaos and there's no better way to do that than to play both sides at every opportunity.

>Making a big deal over that stuff is hypocritical given US actions abroad over the past hundred years, but that's a separate issue.

How is it a "separate issue"? It seems to me the entirety of the issue. If you park in front of my house every day for a hundred years and block my driveway, you have forfeited the right to cry foul when I park in front of your house and block your driveway. By your actions (which are far, far more important than hollow rhetoric) you have declared that this behavior is completely legitimate. Your habitual and repeated engagement in the proscribed behavior has precluded you from credibly complaining about said behavior. Those who can't wrap their minds around the concept of moral authority and reciprocation simply cry, "whataboutism". Spreading foreign propaganda and influencing foreign elections (both kinetically via invasions and subversively via NGOs, funding and other methods) is not only "something we do" - its been the main thrust of our foreign policy for over a century. This is especially important in this case, because not only is this true as a general principle, but specifically as regards Russia. Our interference with Russian elections (actual interference, not a few twitter posts) is substantial and has been well-documented.

>Last winter Yeltsin's approval ratings were in the single digits. There are many reasons for his change in fortune, but a crucial one has remained a secret. For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's campaign.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,136204,...

Dude, let me tell you about US pretty much openly running Russian elections in the 90s.

Please do

do read on https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/05/americ...

I grew up in Russia in the 90s, and I witnessed the effects of US interference first hand. People literally starved to death in Russia after US gutted it.

Meanwhile, US continues to fuck over countries all over the world and having a good laugh about it on TV https://twitter.com/dcentralized/status/964900521793466374

> People literally starved to death in Russia after US gutted it.

No, they starved after the Soviet Union destroyed the economy by choosing to engage in a geopolitical competition—in large extent, a military spending competition—with the far more developed West, with predictable effects on the economy (and eventually the regime, but getting rid of that doesn't magically undo the damage.)

Any US election interference afterward is pretty much irrelevant to the outcome you describe, though it's a convenient way for, say, people who had been neck deep in the old regime to point the blame elsewhere (which itself is a good reason not to have done it, but no one ever adequately considers blowback when they do stuff like this.)

> At the same time, some Russian activities seem to have risen to the level of espionage

There has always been Russian espionage. Not only that - there has been Russian (or Soviet, same difference) agents in Manhattan project, high positions in State Department (see Alger Hiss) and so on. Recent kerfuffle has nothing on that. Russia sees itself as a geopolitical foe of the US, of course they are spying on the US. In fact, US spied on Germany, Britain and Israel (and Israel spied back on US as we know, others probably too but were not caught) - and those are close allies! Of course Russians would do the same. It's not something new that "have risen" recently.

> The article also says that Russian agents organized and funded political rallies.

So? US and US-related organizations funded and organized political and quasi-political activities in many countries. So do many other countries - EU finances a wide variety of NGOs that do all kinds of political campaigns, so does the US. All this fainting about "oh, Russians dare to have opinion about US politics and tell us about it using Facebook! Oh horrors! Our democracy is dead!" just sounds bizarre. Yeah, we live in a global world, Russians can have opinion about US politics, and Americans can have opinion about Russian politics, and both can publish real opinions or any crap they like on Facebook. Making a conspiracy of the century out of it is insane.

> There has always been Russian espionage. Not only that - there has been Russian (or Soviet, same difference) agents in Manhattan project, high positions in State Department (see Albert Hiss) and so on. Recent kerfuffle has nothing on that. Russia sees itself as a geopolitical foe of the US, of course they are spying on the US. In fact, US spied on Germany, Britain and Israel (and Israel spied back on US as we know, others probably too but were not caught) - and those are close allies! Of course Russians would do the same. It's not something new that "have risen" recently.

Right, so I’m not sure why you’re suggesting we should just sit here and do nothing about it.

No, I am suggesting to do something about "it" - provided the "it" isn't a bunch of Facebook ads but a real espionage. So far it seems like real hacks and stolen data leads to nothing but people that post on Facebook get indicted. Which is also largely posturing because there's no way to prosecute them.

There has always been Russian espionage, and Russian spies have always been investigated and, when caught, prosecuted. (See: Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs).

What's concerning is when the President of the United States himself seems to be speaking and acting out against his own government's counterintelligence investigations and in favor of his own country's geopolitical adversaries.

When government counterintelligence investigations, instead of catching real spies and protecting real sensitive systems (which, judging by recent hacks of government data, are in extremely sorry state of affairs) waste time, money and effort to pursue idiotic "collusion" story, buy insane "dossiers" most likely assembled by geopolitical adversaries to try and troll the opposite side into doing self harm, and play political partisan games - I think it's time to speak up about it. And if it takes Trump to speak up about it - well, so be it. It'd be nicer if more people spoke up more strongly about this sad state of affairs - because the Russian espionage and Russian threat exists, but the political games now make mockery of it and try to turn Russia into partisan issue that excludes any rational discussion and any counteraction that is not rooted into tactical partisan gamesmanship - but if Trump is what we've got than it'd be Trump.

> idiotic "collusion" story

Reality: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agents in Trump Tower to negotiate receiving hacking assistance.

A few days later, Trump Sr. delivered his famous "Russia if you're listening ... [deliver what was discussed in that meeting] ... you'll be rewarded" line.

Not to mention that Trump had to fire one of his campaign managers for receiving illegal payments while working for the campaign of Russian-aligned Ukrainian president Yanukovych.

> Bullshit: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agents in Trump Tower to negotiate receiving hacking assistance.

Reality: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agent, who inexplicably got entry visa she shouldn't be getting by direct involvement of Obama State Department, and who falsely promised to provide him some dirt on Clinton, in Trump Tower, and the agent in fact attempted to lobby him to remove Magnitsky Act sanctions. As soon as the ruse became apparent, Trump Jr. left.

FTFY.

The information that Veselnitskaya pretended to have is the same information Mueller is talking about now - about foreign financing of US electoral campaign, which everybody agrees now would be a crime, and certainly something one would want to hear about. But there was no information, it was a lie.

Note that by all reports DNC hacking happened as early as 2015. Podesta emails were hacked in March 2016. Trump Jr. met Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, when all the hacking was already done. Unless Russians also mastered time travel, they couldn't really negotiate anything, as everything has already happened.

> Russia if you're listening ... [deliver what was discussed in that meeting] ... you'll be rewarded" line.

Fascinating. The full line is:

'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said. 'I think you'll be rewarded mightily by our press!'

You dropped the "by our press" part, because it didn't fit your narrative, and hoped I wouldn't notice? Or you genuinely didn't know what the full quote was?

And of course 30000 emails are the ones Clinton unlawfully concealed and then deleted from her records, which were supposed to be preserved, not the ones that were stolen from DNC or Podesta - which by then weren't published yet and Trump had no idea about.

Not to mention this was obviously a sarcastic joke.

But if that is what your "collusion" is, this is what mightiest security apparatus on a planet is busying itself for two years now - I think Trump is criticizing them way, way to mildly to reveal all the depth of the idiocy of this.

> and who falsely promised to provide him some dirt

I am curious if you believe this is OK

Depends on what you mean by "OK". Is it the conduct I would recommend for everybody as highest example of human virtue? Not sure. Is it conduct commonly happening in the midst of political campaign? Most certainly yes, and much worse. In this case, Veselnitskaya told them "Hillary campaign just committed a federal crime, and I have proof. Want to see it?" Of course they did. The mistake was to believe anything Russians say about anything and sending a figure as big as Trump Jr. without several layers of further verification. That definitely was a screw-up, a rookie mistake. For which they paid dearly.

> Is it conduct commonly happening in the midst of political campaign? Most certainly yes, and much worse.

Please list some examples of other US politicians accepting election assistance from foreign governments.

Walter Mondale: Democrats actually contacted the KGB and sought help to defeat Reagan in 1984. The organizer of it was Ted Kennedy.

Barack Obama: famously promised to Medvedev to be more flexible after the election, in exchange for Russian not pressing on the missile defense issue when it could hurt Obama's position.

Hillary Clinton: accepted money donations from foreign politicians with US interests many times. The fact that Clinton Foundation and Clinton Campaign were big buddies is an open secret by now. Though of course that happened not only connected to elections, so attributing it specifically to elections would probably be very limiting to the scope.

I would also bring Steele dossier here, but the involvement of specifically foreign government here is unproven - while I'd give more than even chance that many of the allegations there were created by Russian intelligence sources, it may also be a regular "our man in Havana" type affair, so it's not entirely sure.

But I don't see why it specifically must be the government. If it's OK to accept dirt on your opponent (let's limit ourselves to dirt that is true and exclude fraud for now), then why is it not OK to accept it from a foreigner? It doesn't become less true because foreigner touched it. And if it's ok to accept it from a random foreigner, why it's not OK to accept it from a foreigner which is paid by foreign government?

What seems to be less OK is to solicit it in an explicit quid-pro-quo arrangement, either monetary or otherwise. Of which, in Trump's case, there's no indication (though the first example is a classic specimen).

That would make more sense if it was some random individual offering political dirt.

> “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump”

Sounds like something one should report to law enforcement.

Just in case any bystanders were wondering about the reality here:

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote:

> Good morning

> Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.

> The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

> This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

> What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?

> I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

> Best

> Rob Goldstone

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:53, Donald Trump Jr. wrote:

> Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?

> Best,

> Don

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/11/us/politics/d...

Which confirms the first half of what I said - Trump Jr. was promised some dirt on Clinton, and not just dirt like "she said a bad word in private conversation", but dirt like "she committed actual federal crime and we have proof". The second part - that it all was a lie and trick to get Trump in the room to lobby against Magnitsky Act - has been confirmed by multiple sources present in the meeting and by otherwise knowledge of Veselnitskaya's activities. Of course, no mention of any hacking whatsoever or any actual information that ever existed.

Every* US intelligence agency has agreed with the attribution of the DNC hack to known teams within Russian intelligence.

There are no "sources present in the meeting" who are not themselves the subject of the investigation. Their claims as to what transpired are simply not trustworthy.

*With the exception the NSA, which declined to say anything.

> Every* US intelligence agency has agreed with the attribution of the DNC hack to known teams within Russian intelligence.

This topic is extensively discussed in other threads, but what it has to do with the meeting in question?

> There are no "sources present in the meeting" who are not themselves the subject of the investigation.

Depends on what you call "subject". If you mean that they spoke to that person, that probably is not true for all Russian participants and Goldstone. If you mean those who Muller team would like to talk to, that's probably all of them, which is not surprising - it's the best way to catch somebody on a lie or omission (which is a federal crime, for which they already indicted two people - instant win). If you mean those Muller would especially love to indict in something, that's probably true for Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr. If you mean somebody Muller can actually get something on - that's only Manafort, and for things having nothing to do with Trump and that happened when Trump didn't even know Manafort existed.

But basically you are implying nothing people present at the meeting say about what happened there is to be believed. But we're still talking about it, so presumably we should believe people that actually hasn't been there to tell us what happened there, and disbelieve people that actually been there when they say that's not what happened. All this without any actual evidence. Doesn't seem like a good idea.

> idiotic "collusion" story

While the investigation is not complete, already one Trump campaign member has plead guilty with his specific statement of the offense attached to the plea being all about collusion with the Russians.

Collusion is no longer in dispute, only the details and extent.

The "so?" is in the indictment.

To quote the opening paragraph: US law bans foreign nationals from making certain expenditures or financial disbursements for the purpose of influencing federal elections. US law also bars agents of any foreign entity from engaging in political activities within the United States without first registering with the Attorney General. And US law requires certain foreign nationals seeking entry to the United States to obtain a visa by providing truthful and accurate information to the government.

Legally, Russians can have an opinion about American politics. But they can't pay for ads and rallies and other political oriented activity.

Obviously there's realpolitik regarding these type of laws, and obviously the US has been the most perfect actor in the past either. In the real world, everyone does a little propaganda, as you say. But in the real world as well, sometimes the propaganda is "pushed too far" for a government's liking. It is pretty clear that Russia's propaganda "pushed too far" for the US government's liking. So, the US government has responded.

All in a day of geopolitics, I suppose. But calling it "oh, Russians dare to have an opinion!" is glossing it over. Most countries don't like it when foreign nationals mess a bit with their political internals. It seems like some of the comments here are bordering on "how dare the US intelligence agencies have an opinion on the Russian interference!", which seems naive to me.

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