Thread by @JMichaelWaller

1) Obama-Biden and Company were never serious about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. I wrote this in @Forbes in August 2016, but for some reason the page was removed. centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2016/08/16/wik…

2) August 2016: "The Kremlin’s latest act of espionage-driven propaganda–document dump of Democratic National Committee emails via WikiLeaks–achieved its desired effect of immediate politicization. We should step back to learn two lessons, and creatively fight back."

3) "Lesson one: Moscow’s subversion of American democracy is nothing new. The Soviet KGB and its successor entities have picked favorites in the past, and at crucial points in history, some American politicians and officials wittingly or unwittingly collaborated."

4) "In ways far more damaging than Sanders’ fringe activism, distinguished members of the Clinton political clan benefited from relations with the KGB. The two primary Russia hands for Bill Clinton’s administration owed their political or professional fortunes to Soviet agents."

5) "The first was vice president Al Gore, whose father, also a senator, benefited greatly from his special relationship with Soviet agent Armand Hammer in a way that arguably groomed the younger Gore to lead Clinton’s Russia team."

6) "The second was Bill Clinton’s roommate at Oxford, Strobe Talbott, who as a cub reporter for Time magazine in Moscow, received the break of his life from Victor Louis, a KGB agent whose job was to recruit rising star journalists."

7) Aside: Strobe Talbott became head of @BrookingsInst and played an unusual role in legitimizing the Steele Dossier in 2016, which the FBI knew contained Russian disinformation.

8) "We don’t know whether Talbott allowed the KGB to compromise him, but when asked about it during his Senate confirmation hearing to become deputy secretary of state in 1994, Talbott declined to answer."

(I wrote the questions for Senator Helms and was at the Talbott hearing.)

9) "The second lesson from the DNC WikiLeaks affair is that history shows that when American leaders resist and make Moscow pay a price, the Kremlin backs off. Strategic-minded leaders, as President Ronald Reagan proved, can even turn tables on the perpetrators and defeat them."

10) "Which is why we should be focusing, not on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but on the current commander-in-chief. Barack Obama has done nothing to discourage Russian misbehavior that led to the WikiLeaks dump. His passivity arguably encouraged it."

11) "Obama is the only person on earth who can respond in-kind to the Putin regime’s egregious intervention in the American democratic process. Putin and his inner circle are vulnerable to exposure of their own shameful actions, habits, actions and fetishes."

12) The above is why I wrote this 2017 article in the US Army's Military Review journal. Putin can't take ridicule when it cuts too close to home, which is why he banned this meme. armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Milit…

13) Back to the 2016 article: "For starters, Obama should order the intelligence community to compile properly-sanitized dumps of emails and social media among select targets in Putin’s inner circle."

14) "The personal electronic communications should expose the widely-suspected but seldom proven details of the staggering corruption at the top of the Russian gangster state, including Putin’s family members and loyalists."

15) "And then there are national cultural norms that no present Russian leader could politically survive once the glass of invincibility is electronically shattered. Above almost all else, Putin nurses a deep-seated hostility to male homosexuality."

16) "Putin-centric political elites could never endure the humiliation and ridicule following a skillful intelligence dump of their private emails, text messages, social media posts, photos and Web browser histories."

17) Obama could have ordered @JohnBrennan and others to collect this information to deter Putin and dump it to retaliate against any election meddling, but of course they weren't serious.

So they did nothing except attack Trump. Makes you wonder why.

18) Back to the 2016 article: "No doubt Putin and his inner circle anticipated a cost-free scheme to embarrass Hillary Clinton and, by extension, Obama. If that is the case, all Americans who strive for political authority are wearing an electronic 'kick me' sign on their backs."

19) "They should expect Russia and other powers like China to be scooping up and storing their electronic communication for future use. We can’t allow that to continue. For the sake of America’s democratic society, Obama must strike back hard at Putin and his inner circle. Now."

20) Of course, the Obama-Biden team did no such thing.

They didn't make Putin pay a price for any election meddling. Instead they attacked Trump, using Russian disinformation as their weapon.