by Hall Gardner
ALLEGATIONS OF RUSSIAN TAMPERING IN US ELECTIONS AND IN US DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
Trump has consequently faced severe criticism at home and abroad for his hope to achieve a more positive relationship with Russia—and with Russian leader Putin, in particular. The dilemma is this: Even if Trump is finally able to reach out to Putin and Russia—even in such a way that appears consistent with American national security interests—there will nevertheless be a cloud of suspicion that he did so with his own personal interests, or those of his business associates, in mind.
As the so-called Russia-gate has evolved, the Kremlin has been accused of cyber-tampering in an effort to embarrass Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Committee, allegedly to help Trump be elected president. These alleged actions resulted in the releasing of private emails of key Democratic leaders that exposed the Democrat's campaign tactics and political manipulations.17 Moscow (or someone) had also allegedly tapped into Republican Party communications, but these materials were not released.
Alleged Russian meddling in US elections is a major issue that Trump himself made much worse when he urged Russian hackers to target Hillary Clinton's nonsecure personal email server, saying: “Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”18 It has been alleged that Moscow used WikiLeaks and other critical media to divulge information that was intended to embarrass Clinton and the Democrats. This accusation has, however, been denied by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—even though he himself was not absolutely certain who was ultimately responsible for distribution of the information.19 But it does appear plausible that disgruntled Democrats who opposed Hillary Clinton may have leaked some materials. In short, Moscow's Fancy Bear espionage group may possibly have engaged in cyber-intrusions, but so did others. In May 2017, Russian President Putin claimed that the Kremlin was not responsible, but that “patriotic-minded” Russians could have been responsible for the alleged cyber-attacks.20
At the same time, on the US side, some leaks of highly classified materials at the highest level of government appear to be ignored by Washington, while other leaks have been investigated and prosecuted with the fullest intensity of the law, such as the significant information leaked by Chelsea Manning.21 In general, the dilemma is that some of these leaks may represent a legitimate reaction to perceived negative government policies that seek to perpetrate conflict or that augment governmental powers. But other leaks may be a result of the opposition by special interest groups to positive state efforts to mitigate conflicts or solve disputes or deal with controversial issues, but which do not serve the interests of those particular groups or individuals. Some leaks may thus be self-serving and done to settle scores. Other leaks may be mis- or dis-information intended to divert attention and shift the focus of journalistic investigations—what Trump himself has called “fake news”—but which is an area in which he himself excels by exaggeration, distortion, or invention of so-called information.
It has been argued that Moscow's alleged cyber hacking was one of the causes in the decline of popular support for Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. For her part, Clinton herself did blame Russian President Putin, at least in part, for undermining her presidential campaign, but she also blamed FBI Director James Comey for the way he handled the federal investigation into her use of a non-secure email account for US government purposes. Comey's accusations against Clinton were accordingly seen as impacting voters just days before the election—more so than Russian influence.22
But it has not yet been proved whether the alleged Russian hacking or the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a non-secure email account—if either—was truly responsible for impacting the votes in three key states in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Had Clinton obtained roughly 80,000 votes in the aforementioned states, then she might have obtained a large enough number of electoral college votes to win the presidency. Clinton did not even campaign in Wisconsin, because she believed it was solidly blue-collar pro-Democrat state—even though many blue-collar voters were shifting toward Trump.23 It will be very difficult to prove whether Russian influence and/or the FBI investigation were really the primary reasons for some 80,000 people not to vote for Clinton. Some people did not vote at all or backed third-party candidates simply because they disliked both Trump and Clinton.
MOSCOW LOSES FAITH IN TRUMP
Whether or not Moscow had any real influence in helping Trump get elected appears dubious. It is certain that Moscow did attempt to influence popular opinion in the United States and elsewhere, but to what extent is not clear. Moscow did propagandize against US policies through Russian Television (RT) and Sputnik broadcasts. Moscow most likely paid trolls (as can any group or state) in an effort to secretly manipulate US and European public opinion through Facebook and Twitter accounts. Yet whether and to what extent Russian military intelligence, the GRU, intruded into the US presidential elections, through its cyber-espionage group, APT 28 (also known as Fancy Bear), is not certain.
If, and to what extent, Trump himself might have colluded with Moscow is a major dimension of the FBI investigation. The fact that Trump fired FBI Director Comey in May 2017—ostensibly for the poor way he had handled the Clinton email investigation—even if Comey's actions may have helped Trump and cost Clinton some votes—raised real questions as to the possibility that Trump obstructed justice.24 Comey was fired just a few days after he had purportedly demanded more resources for the FBI investigation into the alleged ties of Trump and his associates to Moscow. (Comey's alleged demands were denied by the Justice Department but affirmed by a number of congresspeople.) Moreover, Trump had previously urged Comey to kill the investigation of the alleged ties of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to Russia (an allegation first denied by the White House). Another possible reason for Comey's firing was that the FBI had begun to investigate Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. Kushner has been accused of opening a secret back channel to Putin, ostensibly to discuss global strategy—an action on the surface that appears appropriate, given the dangerous state of the US-Russian relationship. Yet Kushner; Trump's son Donald Trump Jr.; and Trump's campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, all attended a meeting with a lawyer who claimed to possess close connections to the Russian government, in the hope they could obtain damaging information on Hilary Clinton.25
Interestingly, while Trump's team was attempting to find dirt on Clinton, Clinton was obtaining dirt on Trump. It is now known that the controversial Fusion GPS report on Russian influence on Trump, which was completed by former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele, was paid for in part by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee.26 While the Fusion GPS report does not absolutely prove collusion between Trump and the Russian government, and argues that Moscow possessed information that could blackmail Trump, and while fact can be mixed with fiction, the report did point the way to engage in even deeper investigations, given Trump's extensive and long-term connections to Russia.27
What gives at least some credence to the Fusion GPS report, and what is not generally stated by the media, is its analysis of the differing factions inside the Russian government. It sounds credible that Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, for example, was purportedly furious over the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Council and the subsequent anti-Russian backlash in the United States. The Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and independent foreign-policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, had purportedly urged caution. As evidence of tampering came out, Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, purportedly argued that the only thing to do was sit back and deny everything—and the blowback would amount to nothing. But then Ivanov was sacked as chief of staff in August 2016, with no public explanation, and was replaced by Anton Vainov, who had no role in the operation. This indicates that Putin may have realized his mistake, although Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who may also have played a role, remains in offi
ce. In effect, some Russian elites, in opposition to Ivanov and Putin, had feared Trump's erratic character and preferred Clinton as the “devil you know” rather than the “devil you don't know.”28 Now, after Trump's election, US-Russian relations are at their lowest level since the end of the Cold War.
Despite alleged clandestine efforts of the Kremlin to support Trump and despite Trump's initially strong support in the Russian government-controlled media, Trump's popular and official backing in Russia began to diminish almost immediately once he became president—in part due to some of his Cabinet choices.29 By early February, the Trump-Putin dating game was at an end. The tone of the new Trump administration changed dramatically after the new US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, issued her first salvo against Russia. Haley condemned Moscow for the upsurge in violence in eastern Ukraine at that time and demanded that Russia return Crimea to Ukraine.30 (See chapters 1 and 5.) Concurrently, accusations of Russian cyber-tampering in the US presidential elections hit the news headlines and Moscow continued to deny governmental involvement in the US election process.
THE RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
In Russian eyes, it was the Obama administration who had acted first by trying to influence the outcome of both the Russian and Ukrainian national elections. In December 2011, Hillary Clinton had publicly supported mass protests against the results of the Russian elections after Putin's party, United Russia, had suffered significant losses. At that time, Putin claimed that hundreds of millions of US dollars were being distributed to influence those elections. Putin accused Clinton of publicly declaring that the elections “were not honest and not fair” before she had even “received the material from the observers”; according to Putin, Clinton “set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal” and “with the support of the US State Department, [they] began active work.”31 Putin further resented Clinton's public remarks and US and news media accusations that Putin, his family, and his associates, had become billionaires. Clinton's criticisms, and those of others, made Putin believe that Washington was seeking “regime change” in Russia.32
Putin likewise criticized the influence of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) backed by the US State Department. Moscow passed legislation to make the paperwork much more difficult for all NGOs to register in Russia. In 2012, Putin signed the so-called foreign agent law. This law required NGOs that received funding from outside Russia to register as foreign agents. NGOs would then be subject to mandatory audits. Moreover, Putin raised the penalties for those caught protesting at unauthorized rallies.
Then, during the Euromaidan protest movement of late 2013–2014 in Ukraine, Moscow intercepted and broadcast comments made by then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. In what has been called “democracy engineering,” which backs ostensibly democratic sociopolitical movements that hope to change authoritarian governments into democracies, Nuland's comments indicated US support for specific Ukrainian leaders and expressed her disdain for the less assertive policies of the European Union, for example, in a four-letter word.33 The Euromaidan movement, backed by the United States, then succeeded in ousting the kleptocratic regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was seen as backed by Moscow—even if Yanukovych did always not support Putin on all issues. Yanukovych, for example, refused to join the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia's much weaker version of NATO.
Nevertheless, angered by perceived American efforts to undermine Yanukovich through democracy engineering, Moscow retaliated by using Washington's interference in Ukrainian politics to rationalize its own clandestine military intervention into Crimea and into eastern Ukraine in early 2014—in the effort to check NATO and EU enlargement into its self-defined “near abroad.” At that time, Clinton, who was no longer secretary of state, compared Putin's annexation of Crimea with Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland—but qualified that analogy by stating that she did not think Putin himself was like Hitler.34 It was nevertheless a remark that must have infuriated Putin—and represented one of the factors that could possibly have led him to engage in alleged Russian cyber-tampering and social-media propaganda in the US elections against Clinton.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, RUSSIA, AND ENERGY INTERESTS
As the congressional investigations into the Russia-Trump relationship continued, a number of members of Trump's team have been shown to have had some form of close ties to Russian officials or businessmen. And if allegations can be proved to possess some veracity, such a major scandal could easily be used by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to block any potential Trump efforts to “appease” Moscow. In fact, the publication of the “Paradise Papers” in November 2017 shows the extent to which a number of Trump administration officials are linked financially to offshore financial paradises and to Russian business interests.35 These disclosures warrant open congressional hearings.36
Initially, it was believed that former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whom Trump nominated as Secretary of State, would attempt put an end to the sanctions on Moscow once he took the post. This belief was due to the fact that ExxonMobil had lost more than $1 billion in 2015 on account of US sanctions placed on Russia in 2014, and that ExxonMobil could lose hundreds of billions in the future if it cannot sustain many of its large-scale energy projects in Russia.37 Yet Tillerson, who had received the Russian Order of Friendship Award from Putin for his role in setting up ExxonMobil's extensive investments in Russian energy reserves, took a very tough stance against Moscow's actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine during his Senate confirmation hearings for US Secretary of State. Tillerson strongly criticized Obama's policy as being too weak from the outset. Obama, Tillerson asserted, should have advised Ukraine to move all available military assets to its eastern border and provide those assets with defensive weapons, US or NATO air surveillance, and intelligence.38 Yet had such an approach been taken by Obama, it could have drawn the United States, NATO, and Russia directly into the conflict in eastern Ukraine, as Moscow would seek to fend off Ukrainian forces and foreign surveillance too close to its borders.
Tillerson's tough stance on both Moscow and Beijing at his Senate confirmation hearing helped him to obtain the post as secretary of state. Tillerson was also able to survive congressional scrutiny, in large part by arguing in favor of maintaining sanctions on Moscow—a position that he has generally sustained since becoming secretary of state.39 Nevertheless, this did not prevent ExxonMobil from applying to the Treasury Department in April 2017 for a waiver from US sanctions on Russia in a bid to resume its joint venture with state oil giant Rosneft. And Tillerson's stance on sanctions has not prevented ExxonMobil from eventually suing the Treasury Department in July 2017 over a $2 million fine for purportedly violating US sanctions against Russia in 2014 at the time when Tillerson was CEO. In general, Trump and Tillerson appear less supportive of sanctions on Moscow than does Vice President Pence.40
Yet the first person to fall as a part of this so-called Russia-gate scandal was not Tillerson but Trump's pro-Russian former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.41 The key issue here is that Flynn appeared to be setting up a political network inside Ukraine that would attempt to undermine Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's rule and his policies toward eastern Ukraine and Crimea and toward Russia—and then forge a new Ukrainian-Russian accord and put an end to sanctions.42 This is significant, since Washington will eventually need to find a path for both Ukraine and Russia to compromise over eastern Ukraine and Crimea in the near future—even if Flynn's plans have been thrown to the garbage heap.
In addition to his paid role to represent Turkish interests for a company with close ties to the Turkish government, and his work for RT, Flynn may have been in trouble for another reason. It was Flynn, as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, who claimed that Washington had made a willful “decision” set up a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria to counter the Assad regime.43 This frank statement implied
that Washington, along with its Arab Gulf allies, supported radical Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda, and may have helped to create the Islamic State. Such an affirmation by a former high-ranking intelligence officer may have enraged a number of invisible faces in US governmental agencies in Washington against him. (See chapters 5 and 9.)
SANCTIONS ON MOSCOW
A number of US senators, both Republican and Democrat, have accordingly wanted to make it extremely difficult for Trump to reduce or eliminate sanctions on Russia—even if those sanctions have ostensibly hurt the profits of major US and European businesses and oil or agricultural interests. Senator John McCain has warned that if President Trump did not soon put an end to speculation that he is still willing to ease sanctions on Russia, “for the sake of America's national security and that of our allies,” McCain would work with his colleagues “to codify sanctions against Russia into law.”44
Senator McCain, and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, accordingly initiated the bipartisan effort to require congressional approval before Trump lifts any sanctions against Moscow. “Sectoral sanctions” on Russia that impact major energy companies and banks were due to expire in December 2017—unless extended by Congress.45 (See chapter 4.)
COUNTER-ALLEGATIONS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND TERRORIST INFILTRATION
Trump and his spokespersons denied the general consensus among US intelligence agencies that Moscow had, with high probability, tampered in the US presidential elections. Instead, Trump repeatedly countered with claims that “3–5 million” unauthorized immigrants had voted “illegally” for Clinton.46 Trump then stated he would begin an investigation of purported voter fraud once he became president. Such an investigation raised the prospects that the fifty US states would try to implement more restrictive voting regulations (such as voter ID laws) that could further limit the ability of the poor and minorities to vote.