On July 16, 2018, the BBC summarized the Western media’s fast-developing distaste for former President Trump: “Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit.”
The BBC storyline was that “U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the U.S. election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorized campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.”
So, at a news conference after the summit, President Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian President when it came to the allegations of meddling in the elections. The media hoped Trump would say “the right thing” and back up his intelligence agencies. Instead, Trump replied with a statement that angered even members of the Republican Party. “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
The adverse reaction from what Trump refers to as ‘the swamp’ was instantaneous. How could a sitting U.S. President disown his own officials and side with a foreign leader, that too the rogue Russian President?
Then U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan: “There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. There was “no question” Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.”
The late Senator John McCain, one of the first Never-Trumpers, called it a “disgraceful performance” by a U.S. President. “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”
Sen. Bob Casey, the Pennsylvania Democrat, said Trump had “shamed the office of the presidency” with his “dangerous and reckless” reaction to Putin — “a new low and profound embarrassment for America.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said: “As I’ve said repeatedly, the Russians are not our friends, and I entirely agree with the assessment of our intelligence community.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan called it “nothing short of treasonous.”
Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., another consistent Trump critic, called the press conference “shameful.”
What We Know Today
Many truths have come out since Trump’s Helsinki statement.
Summary of the Mueller Report, March 29, 2019: The special counsel found that Russia did interfere with the election but “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”
So, how did Russia interfere, and what was the outcome? The Mueller Report said that the most critical interference was when Russian agents used phishing techniques to hack into the email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and reveal troves of internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks, which published most of them. The Russians tried to target America’s voting system but were unsuccessful.
A Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report confirmed these findings in July 2019: The Committee found Russian activity directed at the state and local level began in at least 2014 and carried into at least 2017. But the Committee saw no evidence that any votes were changed or that any voting machines were manipulated.
On May 15, 2023, Special Prosecutor John Durham made public a report summarizing a three-year investigation into the extent of Russian collusion in the 2016 election. Durham’s report concluded that there was no verified evidence of collusion when the Justice Department began its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s campaign in the summer of 2016.
According to Durham, the FBI rushed into the probe without evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign had had contact with Russian intelligence officers. It identifies by name the Russian experts in the FBI and other agencies who were never consulted before the investigation was begun and said that had such consultation occurred, they would have said there was no information pointing to a conspiracy between Russia and the campaign.
Our Conclusion
As with most Trump stories, the initial media reporting and the frenzy of incessant coverage for months were plainly wrong and biased, and the Helsinki story was no different.
Russia, like most other countries, including China and the United States, has been covertly interfering in the elections of its rivals for decades. Because elections in America are state-run and control is decentralized, Russian efforts were unsuccessful. Not one vote in the 2016 election changed. The media rarely acknowledges this truth.
On the other hand, American intelligence agencies continued using their levers to cripple a presidency for four years, beginning with a wrongful investigation. In 2016, the crescendo of negative coverage against Trump increased because senior FBI and intelligence officials concluded that the campaign colluded with Russia and leaked this information to the press that had wanted Hillary Clinton to win. The four-year effort culminated in over 50 intelligence officials wrongly asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation in the 2020 election to help tip the election to President Biden. Today, we know that the laptop story was 100% accurate, and had this information not been suppressed by intelligence officials with active support from Big Tech, Trump could have been re-elected. The media continues not to acknowledge this fact.
Trump was, therefore, more right than wrong in Finland. American intelligence agencies meddled much more in the Trump campaign and presidency than Russia ever did.
Don’t expect a public apology from anyone above who was wrong. These are the same people who continue to prosecute America’s covert war against Russia with billions of dollars that we do not have.
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TIPP Takes
Geopolitics And Geoeconomics
1. Russia’s Baltic Fleet Starts Naval Exercises In Baltic Sea – Reuters
The military said that around 3,500 soldiers and up to 40 ships and boats will participate in the drills, which will last until June 15.
2. Russia Claims To Have Thwarted ‘Large-Scale’ Ukraine Attack – Al Jazeera
Russia has said its forces thwarted a major Ukrainian offensive in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, killing 250 Ukrainian troops and destroying tanks and armored vehicles.
Ukraine has been preparing for a counteroffensive to take back territory occupied by Russia since it began its full-scale invasion, as well as the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014.
3. Russia ‘Buying Back’ Arms Parts Exported To Myanmar And India – Nikkei Asia
According to a Nikkei analysis of customs clearance data, Russia is suspected of buying back military supplies previously shipped to Myanmar and India.
Russia may be reimporting the components to improve older weapons destined for use in Ukraine, relying on help from countries with long-standing military ties.
4. China Scaling Back Spending In Southeast Asia, Report Says – Al Jazeera
China has cut development assistance to Southeast Asia as Beijing directs money elsewhere, giving up its position as the region’s single largest source of funding, according to an Australian think tank.
China was Southeast Asia’s biggest single source of development assistance between 2015 and 2019 but was overtaken by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lowy Institute said in a report.
5. Tiananmen Square: Taiwan Hopes For Future ‘Without Fear’ – D.W.
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, said she hopes that the youth of China would one day be able to sing freely and express themselves on the mainland in a statement marking the 34th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Hundreds and possibly over 1,000 people were killed when China’s People’s Liberation Army sent in tanks and troops to quash weekslong peaceful protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Protesters were calling for political change.
6. Israel Accuses UN Nuclear Watchdog Of ‘Capitulating’ To Iran – Reuters
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of ineffectually policing Iran’s nuclear activities. He suggested it risked becoming politicized and irrelevant.
The unusual criticism followed an IAEA report last week that Iran had provided a satisfactory answer on one case of suspect uranium particles and re-installed some monitoring equipment originally put in place under a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal.
7. U.S., British Navies Come To Rescue Of Ship ‘Harassed’ By Iran In Persian Gulf – The Times Of Israel
The U.S. Navy said that its sailors and the United Kingdom Royal Navy had aided a ship in the crucial Strait of Hormuz after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard “harassed” it.
This latest incident comes after a series of maritime confrontations involving Iran following the U.S. unilaterally withdrawing from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
8. Saudi Arabia To Cut Oil Output In July, OPEC+ Extends Deal Into 2024 – Reuters
OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, reached a deal on output policy and decided to reduce overall production targets from 2024 by a further total of 1.4 million barrels per day.
However, many of these reductions will not be real as the group lowered the targets for Russia, Nigeria, and Angola to align them with their current production levels.
9. Fed Up With Corruption, North Koreans Are Attacking Police, Secret Document Shows – RFA
Disgruntled North Koreans are lashing out against police corruption by openly protesting against them and, in some cases beating officers, according to a local government official who saw a secret document detailing the cases.
Since June 2022, citizens have been required to attend educational sessions on following the law in the workplace and at home. The country’s leader Kim Jong Un has enacted policies that treat violence against law enforcement as acts against the state that must be punished severely.
10. Eighty Afghan Girls Hospitalised After Being Poisoned At Schools: Report – ANI
Mohammad Rahmani, the provincial education department director, said the poisoning had occurred in the Sangcharak district among female pupils in grades 1 through 6.
Girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade, including university, and women are barred from most jobs and public spaces.
The attack serves as a reminder of a wave of poisonings in neighboring Iran targeting school-age girls, dating back to November.
11. World Must Unite To End Plastic Pollution – Guterres – UN News
“Every year, over 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, one-third of which is used just once,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a message to mark World Environment Day on Monday.
Guterres’ message comes as the development of a legally binding agreement on eradicating plastic pollution remains on course after five days of negotiations involving more than 130 nations last week.
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Republished with permission from TIPP Insights
