Not a Hoax

Putin’s Chef:   Special Counsel Mueller proved once again that his relative silence should not be mistaken for a lack of productivity.  On Friday, his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein, went to the podium to announce that Mueller had indicted 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies and had obtained a guilty plea from one hapless American identity snatcher.  Mueller’s thirty plus page indictment reads like a chapter from a Tom Clancy novel, one of the early good ones actually written by Clancy. It details how Russian trolls, funded at a cost of up to $1 million per month by one of Putin’s favorite oligarchs, his former chef, now a leading Russian caterer, applied their technical skills.  The trolls disguised the geographic origin of their activities through the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) so that they could fully exploit Facebook and Twitter while sitting in their St. Petersburg, Russia offices. As a result, the wily Russians were able to interfere with the 2016 election process while few took notice.  Their actions weren’t limited to working the keyboards, a few wayward Russians actually visited the United States to gather firsthand knowledge of the US political landscape, traveling to a few locations including perhaps that other St. Petersburg, the one in swing state Florida.  The Russians also organized and funded political demonstrations, including a few with actresses dressed as Hillary Clinton in “lock her up” cages.  Trained to “speak and type” in convincing English they spread discord across social media, providing some funding to “unwitting” Trump affiliated individuals and groups with the goal of further disrupting the already divided US electorate.   The one American cited in the indictment sold the Russians the stolen personal data needed for US financial transactions. To be clear, he knew he was selling stolen personal data, he just didn’t know he was selling it to Russian players. The indictment reveals that that the Russians began their activities in 2014, but ramped up to full capacity for the 2016 election cycle. Though the Russian objective initially may have been general disruption they quickly jumped on the Trump bandwagon, they primarily supported Trump over Clinton but also weighed in during the Republican primaries by slamming Senators Rubio and Cruz.  To a lesser degree the Russians also lent their support to the Bernie Sanders primary campaign. Once it was clear that Trump and Hillary were their respective party nominations, the trolls encouraged disgruntled Bernie voters to stay home or throw their support to Green candidate Jill Stein in part by telling black and Muslim voters that they couldn’t rely on Hillary and spreading fear among white voters that Hillary was dangerously into black and Muslim causes. Though Mueller presents a persuasive, undisputed account of Russian election interference the Friday indictments do not address, nor are they intended to address, Russian-Trump team collusion, something that Rosenstein said in deliberately parsed words. Anyone listening carefully would realize that another Clancy like chapter is on the way and that the jury is still out on collusion but Trump isn’t much into nuance, particularly nuance that he doesn’t want to acknowledge so initially he was gleeful, tweeting that this indictment proved once and for all that there was NO COLLUSION and that he won because he was the better candidate.

More to Come:  The events detailed in Friday’s indictments dovetail too nicely with subsequent events including the hacking of the DNC server, the “Trump Tower” Veselnitskaya meeting, and Trump’s calls for the release of Hillary’s emails to reflect mere happenstance, so despite Trump’s assertions, his team is not out of the woods. The indictments also reveal that, despite Trump’s attack on the intelligence services and despite the fact that CIA head Mike Pompeo is a dedicated Trumper, the various intelligence branches are cooperating.  The transcript of one Russian troll telling a family member that it had been a crazy day at the office because they’d been forced to scurry after getting “caught” by US intelligence and another transcript revealing that members of the Russian troll farm were chastised for not getting enough nasty Hillary stuff into the twitterverse provide evidence of this coordination.  It’s notable that for these details to be included in the indictment, all of the applicable intelligence agencies had to have been on board otherwise the surveillance details would have stayed confidential. The methodical Mueller is known to be very strategic in the way that he runs his investigations, starting from the outside and working up to the head.  By revealing these indictments now and including some previously top secret information he has shown that his strategy also involves winning over the hearts and minds of the US public.  He is laying the groundwork so that if and when he reveals collusion and starts taking down Trump team members he will have already convinced enough Americans that Russian interference is not a hoax dreamed up to excuse Hillary’s loss, that election interference happened and that it is a punishable offense. By announcing these indictments he may also have provided a little more job security for himself and his “boss” the much embattled Rosenstein.  Another Mueller chapter was dropped last night, the LA Times report that Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s partner who also served as a member of the Trump campaign team is expected to plead guilty in the coming days to reduced charges in exchange for his cooperation.  The juiciest chapters, the ones that reveal whether there was Trump family involvement and/or financial complicity are still in development.

The Trump Response:. Concerned that playing golf so soon after the Parkland massacre would subject him to criticism, Trump instead watched the news only to learn that he hadn’t been fully exonerated by the Friday indictments. Paradoxically he also attended a Studio 54 disco party being held at Mar a Lago.  The spinning neon lights did nothing to ease his fury so the increasingly spooked Trump reacted to the news reports about Mueller and the indictments by launching into a twitter tirade   He tweet blamed Democrats for furthering national discord, went after crooked Hillary, the “real” colluder, spewed venom at liddle Adam Schiff, his current congressional whipping boy and then, for good measure, found time to attack Oprah Winfrey. Despite proof that there was and continues to be Russian interference in the American political process, he did not say or tweet anything bad about the Russians.  Other presidents would have expressed horror and announced new harsh anti-Russian sanctions, or at least, plans to impose such sanctions, but not Trump, he still refuses to impose the sanctions that Congress mandated last year.  Most of his spokespeople and surrogates stuck with a Trump approved narrative, downplaying Russian interference and delivering the “NO COLLUSION” message. However, Security Advisor HR McMaster, the author of a seminal book on talking truth to power, missed or chose to ignore the directive.  Speaking at a Munich Security Conference to actual national security professionals, he said “As you can see with the F.B.I. indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain, whereas in the past it was difficult to attribute."  Trump, unhappy that McMaster had gone off script swatted back, tweeting that McMaster “forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians."  In other words, hey McMaster, get with the message, NO COLLUSION, I WON!  

Parkland Politics:  Sadly, everyone agrees that Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter was a disaster waiting to happen.  His school knew it, his former friends knew it, the local police knew it and it turns out the FBI should have known it too.  They failed to act upon a tip that he had posted a video in which he said “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”  Something should have been done though it’s unclear what could have been done under the current law.  Apparently the increasingly violent Cruz was shrewd enough to know what to say when visited by law enforcement, after countless visits he’d had a lot of practice.  The FBI’s failure is now being used by Trump and Florida’s Governor Rick Scott to distract attention from their love affair with the NRA.  Scott, a major beneficiary of NRA largesse, has called for FBI Director Wray to step down because it’s easier to go after the FBI than to go up against the gun lobby.  Trump is taking things a step further, together with some of his supporters at Fox he’s blaming the FBI’s Parkland omission on the agency’s focus on the Russia investigation, a patently absurd comment, the FBI is big enough to do both.  Trump is also assigning blame for the lack of more gun restrictions on Obama because when it’s convenient Trump forgets Republicans now control all three branches of government. Trump spoke at last year’s NRA Leadership forum and Governor Scott is scheduled to speak at this year’s.  The students at Parkland know B.S. when they see it.

Human Resources:  Late Friday, Chief of Staff John Kelly announced a new system for coordinating security reviews.  Sticking with the theme that any failings at the White House are really due to FBI oversights, the new system requires that the FBI do more than provide background checks.  Now they also have to yell the results of their reviews out on the White House lawn, because apparently that’s the only way to make sure that Don McGahn, the White House Counsel, or anyone in the White House personnel office will get the message about any domestic abusers or other unsuitable flunkies with problems that would prohibit them receiving permanent security clearances.  Seriously, the new plan holds the FBI responsible for making sure that White House decision makers actually read the reports that they are supposed to read, it also says that only people with proper clearance will see top secret reports.  Despite this new policy, no one is willing to comment about what will be done about Jared Kushner.  He still has access to top secret information, reads more of it than anyone else in the White House, and doesn’t have, nor can he qualify for, the appropriate security clearance.  Trump’s bimbo eruption problems are still out there, they’ve been tossed to the bottom of the news heap by the school shootings and indictments but, to the extent that anyone cares, they’ll rise up again soon.