New York Times: Russias Hand in Americas Election
This is perhaps the most serious crisis in our lifetimes. "A darkening cloud" hangs over Trump's presidency, according to the New York Times. They are right on!
Its not hard to see why Russia would have been tempted to tip the scales in Americas presidential election. American defense officials have been warning about Russias capabilities and dangerous intentions, calling Moscow the gravest threat to the United States.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, made it clear her administration would redouble efforts to punish and isolate Moscow for war crimes in Syrias civil war and its aggression toward Ukraine and other neighbors. Ive stood up to Russia, Ms. Clinton said during a debate in the fall. Ive taken Putin on and I would do that as president.
In Mr. Trump, the Russians had reason to see a malleable political novice, one who had surrounded himself with Kremlin lackeys. Mr. Trump bragged that the Russian president had once called him brilliant. In July, Mr. Trump said he hoped Russia would hack and divulge more of Mrs. Clintons emails, an astonishing invitation to a foreign power that appeared already to be meddling in an American election.
In recent days, the scope and intent of Russias suspected involvement in the election has come into sharper focus. New disclosures by American officials now reveal that intelligence agencies concluded with high confidence that a desire to undermine American faith in the electoral system morphed into an effort to hurt Mrs. Clintons chances. One critical piece of evidence for this assessment was that suspected Russian hackers broke into the computer networks of both the Republican and Democratic national committees, but only leaked damaging emails from the latter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/opinion/russias-hand-in-americas-election.html?smid=fb-share