President Barack Obama delivers an address to the nation on the U.S. Counterterrorism strategy to combat ISIL, in the Cross Hall of the White House, Sept. 10, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)When the Russian interference first became apparent about a year ago, people called it politics. People continue to say it’s Democrats crying over losing. But people need to step back from their partisanship harnesses and look at the facts.
The Washington Post has published an 8,000-word story about how the Obama White House mishandled the information to not look political. Politics need to come in second when national security and the core of the American experiment is at risk. It did not matter what the partisan hacks would say when another country wants to destabilize an election.
Currently, most Americans have no faith in their government or in establishments. Regardless of if you live on the left or the right of the political spectrum, people hate just about everything. Of course, this is not new. Americans always hate their elected officials, but they at least had faith in them.
Key Points from the first half of the story (You should read it on your own):
- In July 2016, the FBI began investigating potential links between Russian officials and Trump associates.
- In early August 2016, the White House received information detailing how Putin directly sought to disrupt and discredit the presidential race.
- Putin’s goal was to defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump.
- An influx of Russians sought temporary visas to enter the US for short-term assignments. However, the FBI delayed these visas.
- The White Houe kept all of this very close to their vest because they feared it would make things worse. Specifically, they worried about an attack on the actual voting machines.
- Trying to bring in the states, the Congress, and the other intelligence agencies turned into political games. Republicans did not believe it was occurring and believed the reports to be wrong.
- Rep. Adam Schiff became one of the voices demanding actions. “Where Democrats need to take responsibility is that we failed to persuade the country why they should care that a foreign power is meddling in our affairs.”
- Outside of the CIA, the other intelligence organizations did not publicly endorse this idea until after the election
- President Obama approved a modest package of Russian sanctions in December 2016 and also approved a covert measure to plant cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure.
- President Trump will have to make the decision to use any of those planted cyber weapons if the need arises.
- Officials from the Obama administration believe that the limited sanctions, which have not been expanded by the new administration, do not fit the crime. “Russia violated our sovereignty, meddling in one of our most sacred acts of a democracy – electing our President.”
Conclusion
In the end, we got hacked and a foreign adversary added more distrust into our system. And at this point, most Americans still don’t seem to care. We all sit in our partisan corners.
Now, we wait for Robert Mueller and his report. But that only goes to the idea of how the Trump campaign may have worked with the Russians. The more important issue is how do we secure our country and also build up a faith in our institutions. Putin used our hatred of each other to create false narratives. He used the Bernie v. Hillary argument; he used the liberal v. conservative argument; he used the blue v. red state argument. We need to come together as a country. We celebrate our Independence in about two weeks. Remember why we are one nation – and it has nothing to do with our political ideologies.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
