The Kremlin is attacking our democracy—and our president let it happen
Practically every day we learn more about the Kremlin’s secret espionage offensive against our country. This week, we discovered that hackers linked to Russian intelligence have cracked into several think tanks in Washington, D.C.
This should not surprise. Moscow considers targeted hacking such as this to be legitimate intelligence gathering, and the Kremlin’s interest in behind-scenes goings-on in our nation’s capital is perennially high. Russian intelligence has spied on Washington—our leaders, politicians, and their battalions of think-tank and media hangers-on—for many decades. This is nothing new.
What is new and alarming is how brazen Kremlin spy operations against America have gotten of late. Everybody spies, but it’s usually wise to be somewhat discreet. The SpyWar is a marathon, not a sprint.
Vladimir Putin has decided that he doesn’t care we know what he’s up to. He’s thrown out the usual espionage rulebook and embraced street-fighting. Putin uses his spies to rough up Americans, the Kremlin assassinates its foes almost openly, even in our nation’s capital, while Russian hackers pillage American institutions, private and public, with near-impunity. The Kremlin even seems to be trying to tamper with our elections, which is an alarming development.
Now that Russia has decided to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in our election, employing fronts and cut-outs to shape our election to Moscow’s benefit, the Democrats are having a collective freak-out. Team Clinton rails against the Russians and their dirty tricks almost daily now. Senate minority leader Harry Reid has asked the FBI to look into the threat of Russian interference in our elections, while House Democrats want the Bureau to investigate Team Trump’s ties to the Kremlin—and whether anybody in the GOP is mixed up in Putin’s increasingly brazen spy games.
Read the rest at The Observer …
The XX Committee 