Patton: Russians Continue To Aid Trump's Campaign For The Presidency

Beginning last July, a series of emails were released by Wikileaks. detailing private exchanges among high-ranking Democratic officials. The intent of making this information available to the public was to discredit the Hillary Clinton campaign. In other words, to help Donald Trump. The theft of these emails has been traced back to Russian hackers. "Last week, U.S. intelligence agencies said they are confident senior Russian officials had directed such activities, and that the stolen data was then leaked publicly through Wikileaks, an online persona called Guccifer 2.0, and a website called DCLeaks.com." (Devlin Barrett and Damian Paletta, The Wall Street Journal, 10/12/2016).

The most recent batch of emails was stolen from the email account of John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign. "I've been involved in politics for nearly five decades," Mr. Podesta told reporters aboard the Clinton campaign plane. "This definitely is the first campaign that I've been involved with in which I've had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies," he added, "who seem to be doing everything that they can on behalf of our opponent (Donald Trump)." (Amy Chozickoct, New York Times, 10/11/2016).

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Pretty clearly, these hacks are aimed at harming the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. By contrast, nothing that has been released by the Russians is critical of Donald Trump or his campaign. Well, why is it that the Russians favor Trump and want to see him in the White House? The answer is clear: Because Trump's policies and statements are sympathetic to and supportive of Russia.

"The potential benefits Mr. Trump offers to Mr. Putin have been clearly and repeatedly spelled out by the candidate himself. Russia's most cherished goal is to weaken or destroy NATO; Mr. Trump has called the alliance obsolete. Mr. Putin dreams of reestablishing dominion over the pieces of the Soviet Union. Mr. Trump has said that he might not defend former Soviet republics Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania if Russia invaded, despite their NATO membership. Mr. Putin wants the United States to treat Russia as an equal superpower with its own acknowledged sphere of influence; Mr. Trump has repeatedly praised Mr. Putin and promised to work with him . . .

"One of the few changes in the GOP platform pushed by the Trump campaign was the weakening of language calling for support for Ukraine's current democratic government . . . which Mr. Putin is attempting to destroy." (Editorial, Washington Post, 7/26/2016).

In turn, what does Russia have to offer Trump?" In a 2008 speech, Trump's son, Donald, Jr., made it clear that the Trumps want to do business in Russia, but were finding it difficult.

"'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,' Trump's son told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website eturbo News, a trade publication. 'we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia . . .'" (Glen Kessler, Washington Post, 7/28/2016).

Michael Wolff writing in USA Today (8/1/2016) suggests an even more serious possible explanation of the Russian-Trump alliance. Trump may be in debt to the Russians, and that fact would make him beholden to them and, as president, compromise his ability to vigorously defend the interests of the United States against Russian incursions.

Using propaganda to defeat its enemies is not a new story for Russians. Jeff Stein of Newsweek (10/09/2016) writes, "Felix Dzerzhinsky must be chortling in his Red Square tomb. Nearly a century ago the first head of the Soviet secret police perfected the art of 'disinformation,' the clever crafting of false information to sow confusion among the Kremlin's enemies. His heirs have brazenly remounted the technique in an all-out attack on the American political system. It's not been subtle . . .

"Screwing around with American institutions is a piece of a long-range plan to diminish America in the eyes of Europe and other allies, to fracture the Atlantic alliance, weaken NATO, infiltrate and eventually destabilize the Baltics, and to divert attention from his misdeeds in Ukraine and Syria," (former CIA operations officer Jason Matthews) adds."

That Donald Trump would wittingly or unwittingly participate in an effort to destabilize and weaken the United States is shocking. Isn't Trump the person "Who wants to make America great again?"

Playing footsies with the Russians is definitely not the way to do it.

Gary Patton is the author of two books, Selling Mt. Washington, a political satire, and Outtastatahs: Newcomers' Adventures in New Hampshire, a work of regional humor.