A new report confirms that Republican political operatives were working with the Russian government to hurt Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The hacking spree that upended the presidential election wasn’t limited to Democratic National Committee memos and Clinton-aide emails posted on websites. The hacker also privately sent Democratic voter-turnout analyses to a Republican political operative in Florida named Aaron Nevins. Learning that hacker “Guccifer 2.0†had tapped into a Democratic committee that helps House candidates, Mr. Nevins wrote to the hacker to say: “Feel free to send any Florida-based information.†Ten days later, Mr. Nevins received 2.5 gigabytes of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee documents, some of which he posted on a blog called HelloFLA.com that he ran using a pseudonym.
The Russia scandal is bigger than Trump, his campaign, and his administration. It is also about the Republican Party and how willing Republican operatives were to turn a blind eye and look the other way in pursuit of winning an election. The Republican Party sold out democracy to Russia, and what they received in return was a win in the 2016 election.
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The attention is focused on the White House and Trump, but the reach of the scandal stretches into Republicans in Congress and the whole way down to grassroots political operatives. The voter turnout analysis data was valuable because it gave Republicans the Clinton playbook for turning out voters. They knew which voters Democrats were targeting and could negate those efforts.
The data was also useful for Republican congressional candidates because it could be used to help them shape their advertising and message to appeal to voters that Democrats were targeting.
The reason why the Republican Party won’t conduct an independent investigation into Trump is that they all benefitted and potentially colluded with the Russians in the effort.
Beyond Trump, the scandal is about how the Russians turned a political party against the United States of America and democracy.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
