Well, I’m not sure that myth is quite dead yet, but it appears that it took a direct hit. Still, a majority of Democrats believe that Russia hacked the election. And by hacked, I mean messed with vote tallies. There is no evidence to suggest that, as DHS officials, including former Secretary Jeh Johnson, noted this week. The Russians did not tamper with the vote totals. Regardless, this is some of the best tin-foil hat drama from the Left in a long time. Still, for the NY Post’s editorial board, Johnson and company’s testimony killed this myth and blamed the Obama administration for peddling it and mishandling the situation to the point where it snowballed into unbridled hysteria. Now, they do admit, like everyone else, that there was a Russian interference campaign waged by fake news and social media trolls, but added that it played no pivotal role—and it didn’t:
Johnson told the House Intelligence Committee outright that the Russians failed to alter “ballots, ballot counts or reporting of election results.”
Yes, it’s clear Russia (with Vladimir Putin’s full approval) orchestrated cyberattacks designed to influence the 2016 contest, and also pushed fake news.
But the hack, and release via WikiLeaks, etc., of Democratic emails produced nothing game-changing. The biggest impact was to confirm the obvious: The Democratic National Committee favored Hillary Clinton from the start.
[…]
Johnson also made it plain that Democrats didn’t take the problem too seriously: “The FBI and the DNC had been in contact with each other months before about the intrusion, and the DNC did not feel it needed DHS’s assistance at that time.”
Johnson also explained why the Obama administration kept quiet on the threat. The White House, he recalled, argued that a public admission of possible Russian interference might be seen as an effort to influence the election — particularly since Donald Trump was warning “the election was going to be rigged.”
That is: Because Obama was fervently campaigning for Clinton, the White House figured that raising alarms about Russian interference would seem mere electioneering.
[…]
The administration didn’t take action until after Election Day, when it slapped Moscow with new sanctions — putting the question of Russian interference on Page One only after Trump had won.
It’s good that the hysteria has finally died down, but too bad Team Obama’s handling of it all helped produce so much misdirected hysteria in the first place.
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Following Hillary Clinton’s defeat, The New York Times reported that Obama officials were rushed to spread their information about Russian meddling with as many people in government as possible. The only question here is why now? If Russian interference was so terrible, why didn’t they take action? Former CIA Director John Brennan did reach out to his Russian counterparts to tell them to quit their activities concerning our election, but were not heeded. After that, there was nothing. Maybe that’s why there are reports that Hillary Clinton is actually more infuriated with Obama than James Comey or the Russians.
The issue is that Democrats are still going mad over Trump being president. It will be exacerbated by Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia, making the Democratic Party 0-4 in special elections. Maybe the Russians tampered with those vote totals too, huh? Or maybe it’s just that the Left isn’t coming out of the political wilderness just yet.
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