Posted on 05/24/2018 4:03:54 PM PDT by Kaslin
Obama’s former spy chief, James Clapper, is on a roll as of late. The ex-Director of National Intelligence has come to the defense of the intelligence community. Last week, it was reported that Stefan Halper, a longtime CIA operative and Cambridge University professor, spied on the Trump campaign, trying to make contacts with George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Sam Clovis. Yet, to Clapper, this isn’t spying. It was just a confidential source trying to glean information under false pretenses to see if there was any Russian collusion—and so far, there hasn’t been any evidence to suggest the Kremlin was tipping the scales. Oh, and it was a good thing that the FBI did this during the election. Well, now he’s taking it a step further. Despite multiple politicians involved in the investigation into Russian collusion on the Hill, Clapper says the Russians “decided” the election. And obviously by extension, he’s referring to President Trump. Also, the Mueller probe has yet to find any evidence of said collusion. Clapper made these remarks on PBS NewsHour Wednesday:
Russia 'turned' election for Trump, Clapper believes
Judy Woodruff [Host]: One of the things you write very — or have spoken about, I should say, in addition to writing about it very candidly is how you have concluded after what happened in 2016 that the Russians not only affected — tried to affect the election, but you said they actually did affect the outcome.James Clapper: Yes.
Judy Woodruff: What did you mean?
James Clapper: Well, first, I need to make clear that, when we did our formal intelligence community assessment in January of 2017, we didn’t make any call at all about whether the Russians affected the outcome of the election. We didn’t have the authority, charter or capability to do that.
Since I left the government, though, as a private citizen, it’s what I would call my informed opinion that, given the massive effort the Russians made, and the number of citizens that they touched, and the variety and the multidimensional aspects of what they did to influence opinion and affect the election, and given the fact that it turned on less than 80,000 votes in three states, to me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that they didn’t affect the election, and it’s my belief they actually turned it.
former Dir of National Intelligence James Clapper says he's personally concluded Russians not only influenced but DECIDED outcome of 2016 election: "80 thousand votes in 3 states" @NewsHour tonight— Judy Woodruff (@JudyWoodruff) May 23, 2018
Weird because Obama assured us no such thing was possible. https://t.co/VCPMJzRijv— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) May 24, 2018
“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections." -Barack Obama (October 2016)— Magilla Guerrilla (@jmkg95) May 24, 2018
Okay—leaving out the shoddy collusion claims, you have got to be kidding me. We’re now rehashing claims that were negated by Facebook and others. For starters, it’s not like the Russian troll farm operation to influence voters was a massive effort. It was a $100,000 effort, very small in the grand scheme of things, where presidential races are now $1 billion ventures. And did you see some of these ads, like Jesus arm wrestling Satan? It’s a joke. The fact that the institutional integrity of the U.S., and that of our election system, would be upended by a small social media campaign is abjectly ridiculous. Also, throughout most of 2016, everyone had pretty much made up their minds about which candidate they were going to vote for come Election Day. Russia didn’t alter vote tallies; The Washington Post had good pieces about how hard it is to hack/rig an election.
“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections,” said former President Obama in October of 2016.
So, as with most who feed the liberal echo chamber that Russia colluded with the Trump team, or that Russia altered vote tallies, or that Russia’s influence tilted the election, it seems Mr. Clapper is approaching the unserious camp on this issue.
There is no way Trump won Ohio with just GOP votes, the same goes for Michigan and Wisconsin. For months, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) was warning her party that Trump could win her state. He did. He spoke to their issues on jobs, trade, and job protection. He positioned himself as a cheerleader for America; he had an economic agenda. Clinton did not. So, besides going insane on Russia interference, maybe think about the millions of Obama voters who flipped for Trump. The sour grapes over this election are becoming biblical in size from left-wingers concerning their whining. Clinton lost. She’s not coming back. She will never be president. And by the looks of it, most of your 2020 class isn’t much to write home about either.
@ThomasWictor on how worthless Clapper is. Does a little slideshow presentation (close) to show how Clapper let’s us know he’s lying.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/999746226743476224.html
Arrest this despicable bastard for treason .
Utter horse sh*t, but Hillary certainly believes it.
That’s funny his boss said it couldn’t do that
WI, MI and PA - the three states liberals devoted and money on fruitless recount quests in a bid to overturn the election result.
Clapper thinks they failed because at time, they didn’t know the Russians had colluded with Trump to steal it!
If only Clapper could have traveled back in time, he could have heroically unmasked Trump as an enemy of the state and saved the Republic.
The only problem with his claim is there’s no proof 80,000 voters were hornswoggled by the Russians into voting for Trump. It rests on assertions piled on assertions that are the hallmark of conspiracy theories.
Not to mention it violates Occam’s Razor. The simple explanation for the way the 2016 election turned out, is not supposed malign foreign influence upon our election but that voters simply wanted change.
And to think Clapper was our Director of National Intelligence. The Deep State’s visceral hatred of Trump has kept them from seeing the obvious: he won not because of the Russians but because he was the better candidate. Period.
A fact Clapper cannot or will not acknowledge is the truth.
Thank you.
Reminded the American people about the corruption of Hillary and the DNC.
No wonder why them Dems are so angry.
Long. But accurate and thorough.
I don't think I've seen so many weasel words in such a convoluted run-on sentence since the Clinton days.
The answer to all that is probably in the hands of the NSA.
kudos to the russians for putting together the right combo of electoral college votes. Hillary should have hired them to figure out where to campaign.
They probably knew. The corruption is rampant.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.