Clears throat. . . . 1/
So a lot of people didn't read the Mueller report: justice.gov/storage/report… 2/
Or any of the Senate intelligence committee reports: intelligence.senate.gov/publications 3/
Or even the much shorter, but if I do say so myself, excellent report from September 2017 "Shatter the House of Mirrors" that @markondefense and I authored after a great off-the-record workshop with some really great minds on these issues: pellcenter.org/wp-content/upl… 4/
@markondefense So let me just say a couple of things: 1) Russian disinformation ALWAYS plays both sides. 5/
@markondefense 6/ Playing both sides is an enduring feature of Russian influence campaigns and is intended to stoke heated passions that undermine the reasonable discourse necessary for our system to work. For example: npr.org/2017/11/01/561…
@markondefense 7/ So, yes, Russia supports Trump and Sanders--just as they did in 2016 (read Mueller!)--because in doing so they so muddy the waters and stoke so much passionate opposition that it jams American politics.
@markondefense 8/ Go re-read Putin's op-ed in the New York Times in 2013. He bristles at the idea of American exceptionalism and seeks to expose the rot within our system: nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opi…
@markondefense 9/ It's not surprising that Edward Snowden took sanctuary in Russia--after exposing the U.S. surveillance state. It's not surprising that Wikileaks exposed the power of money in American politics. It's not a coincidence that Putin has mocked the electoral college.
@markondefense 10/ All of these things are about diminishing the United States and the appeal of western liberalism in the eyes of publics around the world.
@markondefense 11/ The reality is that now, whether Trump or Sanders or someone else emerges as the winner, we will be saddled with the reality of another election plagued by foreign interference.
@markondefense 12/ This is why so many of us called then--and continue to call now--for a 9/11 commission-style investigation of 2016 (and now 2020) because we have to come to a bipartisan consensus about the threat before we can ever confront it.
@markondefense 13/ As long as we fail to agree on the reality of this threat; as long as the president and his allies view any discussion of this threat as nothing more than politics designed to knock him down, then American democracy remains at risk.
@markondefense 14/14 Russia wants to weaken our faith in our free institutions--including our elections--and undermine the political cohesion of the United States. Read that again, it's not hyperbole.
How we respond to this threat will determine the future of this American republic. [End]
How we respond to this threat will determine the future of this American republic. [End]
