Last Monday the hearings on the alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election and the alleged contacts between the electoral headquarters of Donald trump and the Kremlin encouraged the opponents of the trump. They were inspired by the fact that the Federal Bureau of investigation officially involved in this case. But me, this news is not inspired, and scared.
The fear I have caused the following dialog:
The house of representatives member Jackie Speyer (Jackie Speier) (Democrat, California): Director, do you know anything about Gazprom?
FBI Director James Comey: No.
Speyer: Well, it is the oil company.
Of course, Gazprom is the largest company in Russia. And she really has the petroleum division called Gazpromneft. But mostly he sells gas, earning him more than all the world. Gazprom covers 34% of the requirements of the European Union. Anyone who has read at least five articles on Russia, could not to stumble across a mention of this company. I imagined how the Russian Parliament is investigating associated with the United States, and one of the deputies asked the head of the Russian counterintelligence service, the FSB, about whether he knew anything about Exxon Mobil.
There was another strange moment when Komi asked whether Putin prefers to see the highest public positions in foreign countries are not politicians, but businessmen. As an example, the Director of the FBI called former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, although the lawyer from among the socialists before entering politics in any business not engaged. Maybe Komi thought about the fact that Putin appreciates Schroeder for his work in the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen when he held the post of head of government in Lower Saxony. But it is also possible that in Komi Republic, as head of domestic intelligence, thinks that he does not need a vast knowledge of foreign leaders.
The essence of the problem, because the key question for any investigator involved in the case of the Russian intervention in elections in 2016, is what the Russians were involved, and what relation they have to the Russian government and security services. In this issue, the investigators, the FBI started the investigation in July, not moved. Even assuming that U.S. intelligence has strong evidence of ties between the hacker hacks the computers of the National Committee of the Democratic party and the mailbox of the chief of staff, Clinton John Podestà, and some Russian companies (and the agencies any public statements about the presence of such evidence did not), it is absolutely not clear how the stolen materials fell into the hands of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Komi managed to say “these Russian” only the following: “In our assessment, they used some agent-intermediary. Directly on WikiLeaks they didn’t”.
Komi was talking rather vaguely and evasively, and then, when asked on what basis the FBI has opened an investigation against Russia.
Standard is — and I think here there were a few, and they were different. This is a credible statement about the illegal actions or a reasonable basis for assumptions about what an American acts as the agent of a foreign power.
We can assume that some additional information could harm the investigation, and to prevent this, Komi and NSA Director Michael Rogers declined to answer specific questions about allies trump. But can a person who virtually knows nothing about Russia, is competent to judge whether or not a particular meeting or the exchange of electronic messages with a certain Russian “sufficient”?
Someone from participating in the hearings, legislators have set a very low threshold for suspicion. Meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak is suspicious, because according to a member of the house of representatives Adam Schiff, Kislyak “directs the Russian Embassy, where diplomats are expelled, as they may be spies”. Any contacts with the Russians is questionable, because, as stated by Speyer,
I think about the web in the middle of which sits a tarantula. And in my opinion, this tarantula — Vladimir Putin, who is caught in its web of many people, forcing them to carry out his instructions and to interact with it. To such people, I would mention Roger stone, Carter Paige, Michael Caputo, Wilbur Ross, and Paul Manafort and Rex Tillerson.
Speaking about the Russian state oil company Rosneft, Schiff called it a “gas giant”. A member of the house of representatives Jim Hines said that the Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov — a “loyal ally of Putin,” although the sympathy for Putin Akhmetov is not known, and some of his enterprises in the East of Ukraine was recently expropriated by Pro-Russian separatists — apparently with the consent of the Kremlin.
Lack of knowledge coupled with the desire to generalize everything to the max is the main ingredients of a witch hunt. I fear that Komi is not a specialist in Russia, give in to those moods, which stir up opponents of the trump, and these attitudes will affect the results of the current and all other investigations. As said the member of house of representatives brad Wenstrup,
There is a lot of speculation about any ties with the Russians. I and many others, the question arises, can I meet with the Russian Ambassador. Not be subject to if I investigate? After all, business relationships between us there are here and there. For example, we have now shared the space station with the Russians. We buy engines for our rockets, and in 90 years we have had with them in joint exercises. It becomes scary.
To some extent we, Russian, deserved hostile attitude to us, which arose because of Putin’s policies. Even those of us who will never support, is unable to prevent him to represent Russia as he does it. But this scandal goes way beyond that justified rejection. Because of the hype the Americans begin to be suspicious to all Russian. This introduces an element of distrust in potential business deals, cultural exchanges and even in personal relationships. It poisons the overall atmosphere. And to rectify the situation will be as difficult as to eliminate the distrust from the cold war era.
To limit the damage to only one way. Investigating this scandal, the Americans should try to understand how Putin’s Russia is how the complex web of relations in the Kremlin and around it. It is necessary to better understand what happened, to more sober assessment of the motives and actions of a Russian citizen.
A campaign against the entire Russian will lead to the victory of Putin and his men. They will scoff at the primitive Americans trying to understand the hidden mechanisms of their difficult country. They will be tempted to make even more confusion in American minds. The accuracy of judgment, knowledge and insights qualified investigators will help to reduce this temptation.
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