Second Order Effects Premise of Article:
The recent charges that the Russian government attempted to influence the U.S. elections this year have consumed the US mainstream media and the Russian government has denied it. In addition, Julian Assange has deigned receiving the information that he released was from the Russans. The premise of this article is could they both be telling the truth? At this point, do we really know what happened?
Background:
The first thing that has to be said is that we are really talking about two hacks. The first was the hack into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the second was into John Podesta’s E-Mail account. The Podesta E-Mails probably hurt Clinton more than the DNC E-Mails.
The John Podesta’s E-Mail account was done in a very simple way and could have been done by any 14 year old hacker in his mom’s basement. So the real evidence of Russian involvement would be in the DNC hack, it required a more complex approach.
Based on press reports it is likely that the DNC hack was done by the Russians. According to press reports there was evidence of hacking tools typically used by the Russians. The press has widely reported that the hack resulted in the 22 July 2016, Wikileaks release of approximately 20,000 emails and 8,000 files sent from or received by DNC personnel. Some of the emails contained personal information of donors, including home addresses and Social Security numbers. Other emails appeared to criticize Bernie Sanders and showed apparent favoritism towards Clinton. This release resulted in protests at the DNC Convention by Bernie Sanders supporters and along with the Podesta’s E-Mail may have swayed enough voters to give the election to Donald Trump.
The Russian government has denied everything and said prove it. What is pretty well established is that the Russians did it or someone with enough inside knowledge that they could make it look like the Russians did it. So now lets assume for a moment that the Russians did the hack but didn’t release the documents. Every government on the planet would have loved to have the information from the DNC hack, but typically they don’t release information they get from these kinds of operations. So lets suppose that the Russians did the hack, got the information but didn’t release it, how did Wikileaks get the info.
According to Julian Assange, he got the info from an non-state source, not the Russian government. Now understand that Julian Assange has not been caught in a lie about anything, at least not since the inception of Wikileaks. So, is it possible that both the Russian government and Julian Assange are telling the truth? Could the information from Wikileaks have come from an insider at the DNC; might the Russian’s link be a busted intelligence operation. There was a discussion of a murdered DNC staffer before the hacking was reveled. The press, other than FOX, ignored that potential angle. Now if one looks at the content of the released E-Mails you will find multiple cases where the news media, outside of FOX, colluded with the DNC and the Clinton Campaign, so the main stream press might not be willing to follow a story that lends credence to the leaked information.
The only possible reason that the Russians would have to provide the information that they got from the DNC to Wikileaks would be that Putin just didn’t like Hillary. Based on the statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System, “we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account”. After the Comey statement was issued, there were numerous reports from leaks in the FBI that at least five intelligence services had hacked the Secretaries home server. So it was at least likely that the Russians had some if not all of the E-Mail content that had been destroyed by Clinton’s staff. Just having these documents would be great blackmail material. In addition, Putin had been able to out maneuver her during her time as SecState, he annexed Crimea and took parts of the Ukraine without much trouble. The most logical course for Putin would be to help Clinton win so he could continue to push her around and now he would have more leverage by blackmailing her.
So, if Putin just didn’t like Secretary Clinton and wanted to see her lose because of some personal vendetta, wouldn’t he have wanted to give up the missing E-Mails from her server? But none of the missing E-Mails were provided to Wikileaks, why not? Maybe they weren’t trying to effect the election, at least not with the DNC info, maybe they just got caught because of a leak.
So here is the question, why hasn’t the main stream press asked any of these questions and what sort of Second Order Effects might we see from the press’s obvious lack of objectivity?
Potential Second Order Effect:
The most obvious effect of the mainstream press not looking at other possibilities with respect to these events is further erosion of public trust in the media. This is going to push more news consumers to FOX news or to shutdown completely.
Potential Ways Forward to minimize Second Order Effects:
If the mainstream press wants to continue to be relevant, they need to stop looking for ways to bash Trump and look at these stories from all perspectives.