Contributors

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Curiouser and Curiouser

The New York Times reports that Russian spies planned to use Trump campaign advisors to influence Donald Trump:
American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.

The conversations focused on Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman at the time, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired general who was advising Mr. Trump, the officials said. Both men had indirect ties to Russian officials, who appeared confident that each could be used to help shape Mr. Trump’s opinions on Russia.

Some Russians boasted about how well they knew Mr. Flynn. Others discussed leveraging their ties to Viktor F. Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine living in exile in Russia, who at one time had worked closely with Mr. Manafort.
Manafort has been gone a long time, but Donald Trump -- incredibly -- still thought he could get Michael Flynn back after he fired James Comey, thinking he could quash the FBI's investigation into Russian interference with the presidential election. 

And then there's this photo of Michael Flynn with Vladimir Putin -- and another very surprising person: Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who siphoned thousands of votes away from Clinton in the three states where Trump barely beat Clinton:


After the election Stein pushed for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where she may have garnered enough votes to deny Clinton the presidency. Was Stein feeling guilty for getting Trump elected?

This looks extremely bad: the implication is that Russia was going after Clinton from the right with Flynn/Trump, and from the left with Jill Stein.

I certainly hope Stein wasn't colluding with the Russians, but it looks like we can add her to the list of useful idiots in the last election.

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