Gary Kasparov on why proving collusion with Russia is hard.

[octoberlib]

Link to tweet

?s=21

The private-state nature of corrupt criminal dictatorships like Putin's Russia confounds law enforcement the way hybrid war confounds traditional military response.

Putin uses his oligarchs as emissaries to corrupt, cultivate, and compromise foreign business people and politicians. But they aren't officially state actors. It's a mafia using a nation for cover.

So Trump's campaign manager sharing data with a Ukrainian loyal to the Kremlin or a billionaire crony of Putin isn't "conspiring with Russia" only in the most technical, least accurate sense.

This pattern has repeated all over. Loans to Western politicians & parties with Russian backing, millions in donations from private citizens. Technically very little of it is "Russia," but it's always Putin.

Defending will require transparency, unity, and a commitment to strengthening the institutions Putin exploits so easily. It will also require fighting back on terms a mafia responds to.

As with Trump's power grabs post-election, there is a lot of work to do so that the letter of the law matches the spirit of the law. If winning an election after asking for and receiving the aid of a hostile foreign power isn't illegal, it sure as hell should be.

Campaign finance reform, full financial disclosure, eliminating potential conflicts of interest. Running for office or running a country for personal gain must be proscribed if real democracy is to survive.

Putin and his imitators are good at finding the gray areas of public/private, legal/illegal, media/propaganda, and they exploit every gap. Legal systems & news orgs in the free world are bound by strict rules & traditions of fair play.

*************************************

There was an op ed in the NYT last year by exFBI agent Clint Watts on this subject. He wrote that Russia has decades of experience using influence campaigns and they always build in plausible deniability. They would never use an intelligence agent or state actor to approach a high profile person like Trump but businessmen, lawyers etc. This way if they’re discovered , it’s not the “Russian state “ that can be accused of doing the influencing.

[allgood33]

1. As much as Trump smeared them you have to see that the FBI/DOJ is in the tank for the GOP

Trump was successful, or I should say, the GOP in Congress was successful in discrediting anything, anti-Trump, coming from the Intel community.

It was all a tatic to discredit, not only the Mueller report, but every other investigation of Trump and family going forward.

Right now, the only thing to hope for is divine intervention.

[ZZenith]

3. You sure have been busy spreading hopelessness around here.

[octoberlib]

4. Yes but the fact is proving collusion with

Russia was always going to be hard because Russia makes it that way.

[PandoraAwakened]

2. Exactly

...which is exactly why Barr's supposed quote of Mueller saying the investigation could not establish whether tRumpkins conspired with the Russian GOVERNMENT is so asinine and disingenuous.

[octoberlib]

5. Yep. Trump may be an idiot but Putin

isn’t . I won’t be satisfied until the full report is released.

[octoberlib]

6. There's more

Link to tweet

?s=21

Whatever this report says, here’s what I know: when I was at Cambridge Analytica, the company hired known Russian agents, had data researchers in St Petersburg, tested US voter opinion on Putin’s leadership, and hired hackers from Russia - all while Bannon was in charge.

[octoberlib]

7. And this

Link to tweet

?s=21

@Kasparov63 Mr. Kasparov,

Does the "Russian Government" phrase in Barr's letter give you pause? How broadly do you think "Russian Government" is construed (apologies that I'm asking for speculation) and is it broad enough? How broad should we construe?

Link to tweet

?s=21


This distinction is the key to the problem. Putin's mafia structure is designed to give "Russia" deniability. Like using mercenaries instead of conscripts. How broadly was Mueller allowed to construe someone like Deripaska serving "Russia"?



Putin speaks openly about "Russian patriots" hacking other countries, or "pro-Russian militants" invading Ukraine. This feeble deniability works because the free world stupidly accepts it too often.

[octoberlib]

8. Kick

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

9. Kasparov is more than just a chess champion...

... enlightening in his prose, too.


... KICK!

[octoberlib]

10. He explains things so well.