Having accused Russia of interfering in the US 2016 election, Democrats are guilty of serious double standards, says political analyst John Griffing. They believe not in election integrity, but in winning and keeping power.
Senior US Democrats in Congress are claiming that Russia is behind an online campaign to release a classified Republican memo. At the same time, a number of US Republican congressmen are calling for the release of a top secret intelligence document, as it may expose political bias against Trump in the Russia probe.
Meanwhile, Americans launched a new hashtag "#NotARussianBot” on Twitter, affirming that they are real people and don’t work for the Kremlin.
RT: American Twitter users are objecting to this allegation that the campaign is being driven by Russian bots. Do the Democrats have any evidence to back up this claim?
John Griffing: No, and this is growing quite tiring. Will the ‘little green men’ conspiracies ever cease? This is the same party that for the last 50 years engaged in open treason with the Soviet Union. Ted Kennedy in a memo – memos get the Democrats in trouble – asked the general secretary at the time to intervene in the 1984 US elections to unseat (Ronald) Reagan. Keith Olbermann only in the last year called on all foreign intelligence services - I would assume that includes Russia - to undo our elections.
The Democrats have a massive double standard when it comes to election intervention. President Obama intervened in the Ukrainian elections, intervened in the Israeli elections. This is not a party that believes in election integrity. They believe in winning and keeping power. And that is a very different issue.
RT: The campaign is all about a House Intelligence Committee memo that has already been seen by members of Congress. Is there any good reason why the contents should not be made public?
JG: No good public-interest reason. There is definitely, I believe, evidence of criminal conspiracy in this memo. Frankly, the people that should be concerned are Hillary Clinton and all the Democrats in the DNC (Democratic National Committee) that took part in trying to undermine election integrity in the US. So, there is a good reason why a number of Democrats do not want it to be seen by the public. But for the sake of the democratic process and for the sake of openness and transparency we should all see this. In a long run, that will be good for everyone concerned.
RT: If we look at what Republicans are saying – Iowa representative Steve King wrote: "I've read the memo, it's worse than Watergate." Florida Representative Matt Gaetz says: 'If we get this memo into the public square, heads are going to roll at the FBI." How serious could this be?
JG: The evidence we already have access to reveals what we already need to know. It creates the pretext for reasonable suspicion. We already know and have proven that Russia did not hack US vote tallies, they did not intervene at least to the extent that was previously thought in the US elections. The Democrats have been engaging in Neo-McCarthyism. It’s kind of switched the roles here. 50 years ago they were ‘taking the fifth’ because they were being called to the mat for collaborating themselves with the Soviet Union. Now they are turning the tables and saying that Russia did it in every turn. It’s become a little silly; it’s become a little ridiculous. This is a broken record. We need to have a real conversation about the real data and the real facts, and not about this fantasy.
‘Memo could show that CIA and FBI engaged in conspiracy to topple Trump presidency’
Allegation that intelligence agencies worked to change national policies instead of protecting country is “very dangerous,” Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer, told RT.
RT: This is a four-page Justice Department memo that has already been seen by members of Congress. Is there any good reason not to make the contents public?
Philip Giraldi: No, there is no good reason at all, unless there is classified information in it, which I don’t think is the case. It should be made public. And if it is true – as some Republicans are saying, that this four-page document will prove that there was no Russiagate, that most of what took place was a conspiracy by the CIA and FBI to destroy the Trump presidency – then it is very important that it became public.
… The fact is, if we discover that our intelligence and police services have been engaged in a conspiracy, that is something that is very important to know. That will prove that all of this investigation to try to convince the world that Russia was behind this will finally go away.
RT: Republicans say the memo shows the FBI used illegal wiretaps on Trump campaign officials when looking for evidence of collusion with Russia. If that's true, could it undermine the entire "Russian meddling" story?
PG: First of all, I would not believe anything a politician says. So, if a Republican politician is saying something, he is probably lying. But I think the fact is that, if this document is even half as significant, half as important as they are claiming, this could be a very important story. As I say, when you have the services, the agencies that are supposed to protect the country actually working to change its politics – this is very dangerous.
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