SAINTS PRESERVE US

Russia Rocks the Free World

This morning former FBI Director (“You’re fired!”) James Comey testified before a United States Senate intelligence committee. This was probably the most compelling, must watch television since, say, November 8^th, 2016. Here at the Crooked 9 Comey’s testimony was streaming on an iPhone and a desktop computer, a fraction of a second out of sync but very bad news for traditional broadcasters. But this is the modern world and the modern world is a very confused and complicated slice of space in time, which Comey’s words drove home.

The crux of the matter is the Kremlin. The Russian security services are very good at what they do. The days of the Soviet KGB infiltrating trade unions and radical students’ groups, and providing financial backing for Marxist-Leninist tabloids are long gone. Divisive and disruptive techniques to destabilize what Comey described as “the shining house on the hill” are now far more elegant, sophisticated and shadowy.

Perhaps it’s not quite fair to describe the 45^th president of the USA, a billionaire, as a bumpkin. Still, the new White House regime seems to be a cadre of inexperienced, immaculately groomed regressive zealots, some of whom might be half-wits. Perhaps it made perfect sense to open a Batshit-crazy Backdoor Red Phone to a hostile foreign power using their technology because it had somehow hacked the outcome of what was believed to be a free and democratic election. Deposed national security advisor Michael Flynn was the head of the wedge or perhaps the supplicating hand (tough to tell with liars); the retired military general is now registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent because he actively promotes the interests of Turkey, a fast failing quasi-democracy.

All we really know is that the most admirable and powerful country in the world is awash in harsh partisan confusion and that the Russians cleverly fracked those fissures. Comey chose to pledge his allegiance to America’s constitution and not to a star of reality television. But Comey may become an actual reality television or live stream star himself. When thanked by one senator for appearing before the committee as a private citizen, he quipped, “I’m between opportunities.”

The core of Comey’s testimony was sheer common sense. Ultimately, there are no Democrats or Republicans, just Americans. Something happened and he believes his country is at risk. These are not the good old days of midnight spy exchanges at Checkpoint Charlie. There’s no need to speculate on Russian interference in the last US election. Comey said, “There’s no fuzz on this.” In other words, the evidence is hard, solid in the eyes of US intelligence services. Alarmingly, Comey raised the possibility of American inside help and that prospect goes far beyond the realm of troubled whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Meanwhile, the president just wants all of this fake stuff to go away.

The Senate intelligence committee this morning did teeter toward the oxymoronic. Republican senator John McCain, a Vietnam War hero branded “a loser” by the current commander-in-chief and who thought Sarah Palin had the right stuff to be vice-president, doddered into the Kremlin’s e-mail funhouse without a stamp or an envelope.

As Director of the FBI, Comey was compelled to investigate the stupidity of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reliance on an unsecure and private e-mail server. Under scrutiny, the senator from New York erased or lost some 30,000 pieces of correspondence, security levels and national importance unknown. But this was crusty stuff, dating back to President Obama’s first term. No charges were laid because, alas, you can’t jail someone for simply being an idiot.

The 2016 presidential campaign was something different altogether. The Democratic Party’s computer systems were invaded and confidential information wasn’t leaked so much as poured onto the Internet. Very possibly, maybe, this flood turned the tide of the election. The key here is whether the Russians did or did not do anything to effect the outcome last November, and if they did or didn’t, people are unsure if they did or didn’t. Win-win. Comey said, “This is a big deal.”

This morning McCain was caught up in a web of counter-espionage, hook, line and sinker. The creaky senior from Arizona wondered why the ancient Clinton e-mail investigation had been closed because obviously it related to the election leaks investigation, those innocuous internal Democratic e-mails, and wasn’t this some sort of double standard, what with the FBI looking into the White House’s connections with the Russians when it’s really all about Hillary? Sure. The Kremlin won this round; well played, comrades.