Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Unclear on the Concept of Blackmail

If the Russians have Hillary Clinton's emails, the last thing they will do is leak them before the election.

This writer believes that Russia could during the election campaign here leak emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's private server email system--set up on her order in defiance of policy, law, and the barest level of respect for American national security--to help Donald Trump as revenge for Bill Clinton's past NATO expansion and worry Hillary will expand it more:

Why would Moscow want to damage Hillary and help Trump?

The answer, in a word, is NATO. Under President Bill Clinton, NATO expanded into Central and Eastern Europe, right up to Russia’s door, thanks to American support. Putin has made clear that expanding NATO even further, to Ukraine and Georgia, is completely unacceptable.

What alternate world does the writer live in? Trump made anti-NATO comments but he has no fixed opinions on anything but his greatness. NATO is not at risk under a President Trump.

If Moscow has those Clinton emails, they want Hillary Clinton to be president. Russia will have a vast trove of material that they can threaten to release to the public in order to get President Clinton to comply with a Russian request or to mute an American response to a Russian move.

This article is so obviously 180 degrees wrong that I cannot comprehend why the author made this case.