That's right.
Posted on 10/21/2018 2:55:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is a question we’ve addressed here before, but recent events make it more applicable than ever. A 44-year-old Russian woman named Elena Khusyaynova has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. The headline alone is enough to send chills down your spine. It’s got the word “conspiracy” right in the title and she’s not just going after a specific candidate or group of people. She’s targeting the entire nation. But what did she actually do? We can find some answers in the announcement from the Justice Department. Here’s a hint: she was “meddling.”
A criminal complaint was unsealed here today charging a Russian national for her alleged role in a Russian conspiracy to interfere in the U.S. political system, including the 2018 midterm election.
“The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia…
“Today’s charges allege that Russian national, Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, conspired with others who were part of a Russian influence campaign to interfere with U.S. democracy,” said Assistant Attorney General Demers.
Okay. That all sounds good so far. But what did she actually do? Saying that she attempted to “sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions” is still a bit on the vague side. And none of those things really sound like crimes so much as sneaky tricks. Reading a bit further we find that she handled all the finances for Russia’s Project Lakhta, an effort clearly aimed at attempting to influence voters in the United States. Her responsibilities included:
So they were attempting to blend in with American political activists and basically fire up the crowd, probably creating or promoting fake news. But there’s no mention of making campaign contributions (which is illegal for foreigners to do), tampering with voting machines or anything else that would qualify for a violation of most of the laws we usually associate with campaign rules. She’s pretty much doing all the same things Amercian political activists do on a daily basis, aside from not being a citizen of the United States. The closest the Justice Department comes to specifying anything which sounds like criminal conduct is to say that she attempted to, “defraud the United States by impeding the lawful functions of government agencies in administering relevant federal requirements.” I’m not even sure what that means.
But don’t people do these things all the time if they are interested in political activism? And I don’t just mean Americans or in this case the sneaky Russians. Just this morning, during the six o’clock hour, CNN did a glowing review of a singer and actor named Troye Sivan. It turns out that Troye is a big favorite of Taylor Swift and some other famous people I don’t follow on Twitter. And he’s out there joining in with Taylor to push people to register to vote and, quite specifically to #RESIST Trump and support some Democrats. He’s been quite clear which side he’s on, describing his reaction to the GOP victories in the 2016 elections by saying, “I’ve been pretty heartbroken about the whole thing and I don’t even live here.”
It’s the “I don’t even live here” part you should pay attention to. Sivan is a native of South Africa and a citizen of Australia. He lives in Los Angeles now, but he’s not a citizen. So by taking this message forward, not only on television but to his considerable army of social media followers, isn’t Troye Sivan “meddling in our election” too? Or doesn’t it count if you’re supporting the Democrats? And let’s be clear, I could run down a sizable list of non-citizen celebrities who are doing the same.
And what about Americans who dip their toe into the electoral affairs of other countries? I write (and tweet) about German politics on a regular basis, particularly dealing with the disastrous leadership of Angela Merkel and her open borders policy. We have readers in Germany and hear from them regularly. Am I “meddling” in the upcoming German elections?
I think we need a better definition of just what “election meddling” means, which laws are applicable and who they apply to. You can clearly ask the social media giants to clamp down on accounts for whatever reason you like and they can do so because they are private companies. But if we’re going to start arresting people we need to know what the rules of the road are. I’d be particularly interested to have the details myself before another Democrat is elected President and I’m suddenly extradited to Germany.
If the Dems suddenly have tons of money it’s the Chinese ,they’ll do anything to get rid of Trump ,LOL
How about when old serpenthead Carville was sent to Israel to promote Netanyahu’s opponent?
So far as i'm concerned, the absolute worst and most common form of meddling in elections is the left wing monopoly on all the broadcast systems, through which they censor news damaging to Democrats and liberal ideology.
For example, Bill Clinton had numerous women accusing him of serious felony charges, and the media would not carry it, but when Kavanaugh was accused of a silly and frivolous charge, that even if it had been true would have amounted to nothing, the liberal media monopoly would not shut up about it.
This is real election meddling. They deliberately mislead the public to get them to vote the way the liberals who control the media want them to vote, and we need to smash this election meddling system that has been steering the country left for at least 60 years.
How about CNN, MSNBC, New York Slimes, Washington Compost, Facebook, Twitter Google and all of their fake news and censoring?
That's right.
“.....we need to know what the rules of the road are.”
Rules? In a political event? They are very simple. Everyone can say anything they want to and retract it later or not do what they say they are going to do and it will be forgotten. If everyone was going to be punished for lying or not accomplishing their word then half of Hollywood would be in jail for not leaving the country. (And they didn’t eat a bug, either) Let’s just say there are no rules sans breaking select laws by select people. especially when one of them has a brain that consistently turns into jello.
But to throw one at congress, why leave them out, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was established by Congress in 2002 wanting to protect shareholders and the general public from future accounting errors and fraudulent practices by companies, as well as improve the accuracy of corporate disclosures. However, members of Congress can mislead the nation with budget and reporting numbers they pull out of thin air and not worry about retribution. The penalty for CEO’s, and not congresspeople, is fines up to $5 million and 20 years behind bars if they report faulty numbers.If they ever put term limits in, the lawmakers/breakers would be out of a job a few times before they got out, even with good behavior. Al Capone didn’t get that either.
rwood
Who’s meddling in elections???
Exactly whom you would think. In CA the people who NAME the propositions were able to call the car tax repeal proposition, put on the ballot by the Struggling People of CA who already pay the highest taxes in the nation and are forced to worship illegal felons and feral drug addicts, a totally false name, something about Erasing Highway Funds or some BS. They are filling every channel with how Prop 6 will destroy our roads if they don’t get more $ on every car and gallon of gas. They actually lied in the NAMING OF THE PROP.
Anyone who can’t legally vote talking about American politics
Voter fraud is a good place to start.
Exercising free speech rights is a crime now if you do it in the wrong direction.
April 30, 2018
Virginia’s two Democratic senators are recommending that Justice Department lawyer G. Zachary Terwilliger take over as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a high-profile jurisdiction that is involved in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“We highly recommend Mr. Terwilliger for this important position,” Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner wrote in a letter to the White House on Monday.
Terwilliger serves under Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who has been criticized by the president for his handling of the Russia investigation.
Da Shvamp ees deep.
The people sponsoring and publicizing the coming invasion upon our southern border?
Those people are conspiring/colluding to impact our election.
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