New York Magazine reports that vice president Mike Pence is alleging that US intelligence found that Russian attacks on the 2016 elections did not lead to president Trump's election or even have any effect whatever. In an interview with Axios Pence stated: “Irrespective of efforts that were made in 2016 by foreign powers, it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election.”
NYM characterizes the Pence assertion like this: “He is lying” and “this is unequivocally false.”
A formal US intelligence assessment released last month concluded that Russia “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” The assessment took no position on whether this interference had any effect on the election. The intelligence report stated: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”
In testimony before congress earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that “there should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”
A thought experiment: There's no way to prove or disprove this, but it is possible that Russian influence was a necessary factor in Trump's win. Specifically, Clinton lost by about 107,000 votes spread among three states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Given that, what is the probability that pro-Trump Russian influence, including the effects of hacking and Wikileaking damaging stolen emails were, along with other factors like the Comey investigations and his pronouncement of Clinton's email 'carelessness', was enough to make a 107,000 vote difference in three states? If Clinton had won those three states, she would have won the election.
The vote difference could have come from people (i) not voting for Clinton or anyone else due at least in part to the Russian attack on her candidacy, or (ii) voting for another candidate, including Trump. No one can know the answer. Most people whose votes were affected probably cannot say for certain how much of an influence the Russian attack had on their own vote choice.
Mental calculations like this tend to be more grounded in biased unconscious thinking, than in cold, unemotional conscious reason (logic). Most people simply cannot know whether Russian influence was needed to tip their vote choice one way or another. That's just a matter of human biology, not political ideology.
Given the uncertainty, people will believe what they want and they cannot be proven wrong. However, simple logic says that it is likely that Russian attacks did affect some voters. Doing that was the whole point of the Russian attacks. People who say the Russians affected no one is simply not credible.
All things considered, it is reasonable to conclude there is a about a two-thirds (66.66%) chance that Trump is an illegitimate president who is in power now due to Russian interference.
The Kenyan Muslim ISIS terrorist: On this point, it is worth remembering, millions of people (about 20% of American adults in 2010) believed that Obama was not an American citizen despite contrary evidence, i.e., his birth certificate. In this situation, there is more evidence to support belief that Trump is an illegitimate president that what supported any belief that Obama was illegitimate. In addition, many Americans believed Obama to be an ISIS operative and supporter of terrorism, based mostly or completely on unsubstantiated, partisan conspiracy theory.
So, when Trump, his supporters or his administration makes illogical claims that the Russians had no influence and US intelligence proves that, it is just another reality- and logic-detached pro-Trump lie. Unfortunately, such lies incur no political or legal consequences for causing the damage this kind of false rhetoric inflicts on the American republic, its people and civil society.
B&B orig: 2/15/18
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