Re:Sessions met with Russian envoy twice last year, encounte...
by ModernMech on Wednesday March 01, 2017 @11:31PM
(#13771451)
> Why did Russia want Trump to win? Did he promise to hand over the Crimea or something?
I was listening to this today [1], and it explained that Russia fully expected Clinton to win, and was just looking to make her presidency chaotic. You know had Hillary won, and news of Russian "hacking" reached Republicans, they would be reacting just as the Democrats are now, calling for investigations and lobbying charges of collusion with the Russians against Clinton. Trump even primed the base to accept that line of attack, calling the election rigged when it looked like he was going to lose (since that's always his reaction when he starts to lose).
That Trump won came as a shock to Putin, and now after a brief honeymoon with Trump, Putin has ordered to dial back praising Trump on national media.
So really, there may be no direct link between the Trump campaign and Russian meddling, but they certainly aren't doing themselves favors by lying about it. I could understand that the optics look bad, given the circumstances, but being caught lying about it looks exponentially worse, especially since sessions previously refused to recuse himself from the investigation into said contacts with Russians!
I was listening to this today [1], and it explained that Russia fully expected Clinton to win, and was just looking to make her presidency chaotic. You know had Hillary won, and news of Russian "hacking" reached Republicans, they would be reacting just as the Democrats are now, calling for investigations and lobbying charges of collusion with the Russians against Clinton. Trump even primed the base to accept that line of attack, calling the election rigged when it looked like he was going to lose (since that's always his reaction when he starts to lose).
That Trump won came as a shock to Putin, and now after a brief honeymoon with Trump, Putin has ordered to dial back praising Trump on national media.
So really, there may be no direct link between the Trump campaign and Russian meddling, but they certainly aren't doing themselves favors by lying about it. I could understand that the optics look bad, given the circumstances, but being caught lying about it looks exponentially worse, especially since sessions previously refused to recuse himself from the investigation into said contacts with Russians!
[1]: https://www.npr.org/player/embed/517994347/517994380