Judging from Woodward’s book excerpts and current GOP narrative, many Republicans appear to be attempting to portray themselves as the “reasonable” ones and/or as the sole line of defense against Trump’s worst impulses.
Trump has the U.S. bully pulpit now and is doing a better job sowing domestic and international division than Putin could have ever hoped for.
There are more mechanisms in place that would result in retaliation for direct interference.
3/3
No matter what the results are on November 6th, I would anticipate there will be a POST-election psy ops effort to try to cast doubt on the outcome and integrity of the electoral process.
Again: I would anticipate that no matter the results. It’s low-hanging fruit for Putin.
Trump campaign aide Rick Gates sought proposals for social media manipulation (including creation of fake online personas) and opposition intelligence gathering from Psy Group, an Israeli intel firm
(Those of you who’ve followed me a long time know I have speculated in the past about Israeli versus/in addition to Russian involvement in the social media psy-ops during the 2016 election. Remember all those hashtag “MAGA” troll/bot accounts that had hashtag “StandWithIsrael”?)
@RadioFreeTom Similar to Trump admin stripping immigrant children from parents: the message is “we can and will target anyone.”
@JKhashoggi didn’t identify as a “dissident,” was supportive of the monarchy, and only sought reform.
MBS apparently believes Trump and Bibi will turn a blind eye.
@RadioFreeTom@JKhashoggi (And MBS is likely correct he will do this with impunity. The context, of course, is the recent imprisonment of numerous female human rights advocates and charging them with serious crimes, seeking the death penalty for at least one - all without meaningful U.S. response.)
If news re @JKhashoggi proves true, his assassination is an dramatic expansion of Saudi Arabia’s already Draconian war on dissent.
If MBS gets away w doing this w impunity (meaning Trump/Bibi turn a blind eye), some others in the region will follow suit. middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-p…