Thread by @JMichaelWaller

(1) From January 2017: A real Russia expert, @DavidSatter, looks at the Russia collusion narrative. "U.S. society is slipping into a quagmire of Russian disinformation in which the Putin regime will find it very easy to create reality and destroy facts."
nationalreview.com/2017/01/russia…

(2) Satter: "This has implications not only for U.S. security but also for the country’s psychological health." #disinformation #RussiaReport

(3) Satter: ""The recently released report that asserts that Russian president Vladimir Putin has been 'cultivating assisting and supporting Trump' for years and that the Russians have compromising information (kompromat) on him is, I believe, a deliberate Russian provocation."

(4) Satter: The #SteeleDossier "is accepted as the product of a private investigation that may or may not have been honest rather than what I believe it to be — a carefully constructed attempt to disrupt American political life for years to come."

(5) Satter on #SteeleDossier: "In this case, the indications are that Steele was being used by the Russians. Reading the Steele report, I was struck by the way his sources employed the standard techniques of Russian propaganda and manipulation."

(6) Satter on #SteeleDossier's Source C: "Its inclusion suggests a careful attempt by Steele’s Russian sources to make the report appear authoritative to a naïve Western audience."

(7) Satter: #SteeleDossier "report said that Putin was motivated by 'fear and hatred of Hillary Clinton.' This again reflects the thrust of Russian propaganda, which tries to reduce policy difference to a conflict of personalities."

(8) Satter: "In the report, attributing Russian help for Trump to hatred of Clinton was a way of making this supposed help more plausible at a time when Clinton appeared certain to become president."

(9) Satter: "It also distracted attention from the real goal of Russian activities, which was to undermine American institutions."

(10) Satter: "Trump has reacted to the Steele report exactly as the Russians wanted him to — by denouncing the intelligence community that leaked it and saying that their actions were like 'something out of Nazi Germany.'"

(11) Satter: "The same pattern of Russian interference was evident in the release by WikiLeaks of the e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and the personal account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Joe Podesta."

(12) Satter: "Had the e-mails been published as a result of investigative reporting, they would have been a major contribution to our knowledge of the candidates. In this case, however, the 'investigative reporters' were the agents of a foreign intelligence service."

(13) Satter on Obama's legit but limited resopnse: "What was decisive for the internal condition of the U.S., however, was the attempt to depict what happened as primarily an attempt to destroy the Clinton candidacy rather an effort to discredit the American system as a whole."

(14) Satter: "It was this misinterpretation that gave the Russians’ actions a partisan cast and set Americans against each other, making it easier, ironically, for the Russians to do greater damage in the future."

(15) Satter: "It is highly unlikely that the Russians shared the U.S. perception of the huge difference between Clinton and Trump. As secretary of state, Clinton backed the 'reset' policy that offered unjustified concessions to Russia and ignored the regime’s crimes."

(16) Satter: "The U.S. is now at a crossroads in dealing with Russian disinformation and manipulation. The country is vulnerable because, with the end of Cold War, political issues have become self- interested and parochial." #disinformation

(17) Satter: "Paradoxically, this has added a level of viciousness to political conflict that is out of all proportion to the importance of the issues. The result is a vulnerability that hostile foreign powers such as Russia are quick to exploit."

And now, of course, China.