03-25-2019, 09:00 AM
So now............President Trump is claiming 'complete exoneration' and calling for investigation of 'the other side'; congresspersons are pushing for release of the actual Mueller report; some prominent Democrats and anti-Trumpers who insisted that there was evidence of collusion are skeptical of Barr's summary and Mueller's decision to punt on the issue of obstruction; some prominent Republicans and Trump-loyalists who insisted that Mueller was a witch-hunting hack overseeing 'angry Democrats' hellbent on charging Trump are celebrating Mueller's purported conclusions.
Both sides will be spinning contents of the Mueller report to best suit their agendas for some time to come, in my opinion.
I wish I was seeing more focus from elected leaders on both sides regarding how to deter Russia (and other countries who may be motivated to follow the same playbook) from illegally interfering in future U.S. elections.
Influence campaigns into other country's politics is nothing new and the U.S. engages in them too. But, Russia's actions in 2016 went beyond 'influencing'. Hacking and releasing party/candidate communications, foreign entities falsely representing themselves as citizen activists on social media to create divisions between citizens, covert governmental operatives aggressively trying to infiltrate a campaign, attempts to hack electronic voting machines, etc..............are criminal acts made easier by today's technology and political polarization. Hopefully, a lot is being done by our national security agencies to aggressively defend against it.
Barr summary: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019...eport.html
Both sides will be spinning contents of the Mueller report to best suit their agendas for some time to come, in my opinion.
I wish I was seeing more focus from elected leaders on both sides regarding how to deter Russia (and other countries who may be motivated to follow the same playbook) from illegally interfering in future U.S. elections.
Influence campaigns into other country's politics is nothing new and the U.S. engages in them too. But, Russia's actions in 2016 went beyond 'influencing'. Hacking and releasing party/candidate communications, foreign entities falsely representing themselves as citizen activists on social media to create divisions between citizens, covert governmental operatives aggressively trying to infiltrate a campaign, attempts to hack electronic voting machines, etc..............are criminal acts made easier by today's technology and political polarization. Hopefully, a lot is being done by our national security agencies to aggressively defend against it.
Barr summary: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019...eport.html