By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--September 6, 2016
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"Speaking on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday, the Democratic vice presidential nominee compared the cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee--which was widely linked to Russian government hackers --to the scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. "He has openly encouraged Russia to engage in cyberhacking to try to find more emails or materials, and we know that this cyberattack on the DNC was likely done by Russia," Kaine said. "A president was impeached and had to resign over an attack on the DNC during a presidential election in 1972." "In 1972, burglars broke into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington at the behest of Nixon's reelection campaign. Nixon resigned two years later. "Kaine's comments came as he was pressed by host Martha Raddatz on the information contained in newly released notes from Hillary Clinton's FBI interview about her use of a private email server while at the State Department. "Kaine reiterated that Clinton has apologized for using a private email account rather than one issued by the department. But he insisted that the documents show "clearly" why the FBI chose not to pursue criminal charges. "So contrast the Hillary situation, where the FBI said there's no need for legal proceedings, with an attack that is being encouraged by Donald Trump on the DNC by Russia similar to what led to resignation of a president 30 years ago," Kaine said."
"A Russian influence operation in the United States "is something we're looking very closely at," said one senior intelligence official who, as others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Officials are also examining potential disruptions to the election process, and the FBI has alerted state and local officials to potential cyberthreats. "The official cautioned that the intelligence community is not saying it has "definitive proof" of such tampering, or any Russian plans to do so. "But even the hint of something impacting the security of our election system would be of significant concern," the official said. "It's the key to our democracy, that people have confidence in the election system."The U.S. intelligence community is not saying it has "definite proof" of such tampering, or any Russian plans to do so, because the U.S. intelligence community has no "definite proof". Period. Hinting that they do, as they did in the Washington Post story is disingenuous at best and making the best use of outright lies like Hillary Clinton does, at worst. "Russian President Vladimir Putin says he doesn't know who was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, but it was important the information had been made public. (Reuters, Sept. 2, 2016)
"The Kremlin's intent may not be to sway the election in one direction or another, officials said, but to cause chaos and provide propaganda fodder to attack U.S. democracy-building policies around the world, particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union."As already noted above, the Democrats are already taking care of that. If the Russians were to hack their way to getting who they don't want elected, they'd be hacking the Donald Trump campaign and not the Democrat one. As Marxists, the Democrats are Russia's close ideological cousins, while Donald Trump is an outspoken defender of the dreaded Free Market Capitalist system--"a capitalist pig" in the vernacular of the far left. Vladimir Putin says he has no idea who hacked the DNC. Isn't that what he would say if he was secretly rooting for Hillary Clinton as America's 45th? Meanwhile, it is not the Russians working on covertly influencing the 2016 Election Campaign to counter U.S. leadership and influence in international affairs, it is Hillary Clinton and the anti-American Democrats.
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