{"id":22279,"date":"2017-06-09T01:42:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T01:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22279"},"modified":"2017-06-09T01:42:41","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T01:42:41","slug":"lets-get-to-the-heart-of-this-hacking-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22279","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s get to the heart of this hacking matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/russian-hacker-credit-card-hacking.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-22280\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/russian-hacker-credit-card-hacking-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/russian-hacker-credit-card-hacking-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/russian-hacker-credit-card-hacking.jpg 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As a frequent critic of Donald J. Trump, I want to set the record straight on a key issue that&#8217;s threatening the man&#8217;s presidency.<\/p>\n<p>I do not give a rat&#8217;s rear end about whether alleged attempts by Russian agents to influence the 2016 presidential election actually <em>created<\/em> a Trump victory. I accept the notion that Trump would have won the election anyway.<\/p>\n<p>What is troubling me is the question of what role &#8212; if any &#8212; the Trump campaign had in assisting the Russians.<\/p>\n<p>Former FBI Director James Comey told U.S. Senate committee members today that he is certain of Russian meddling in our election. I accept the FBI director&#8217;s opinion on that, too.<\/p>\n<p>I keep circling back to the question of whether Trump&#8217;s team actively aided the Russian hackers. If they didn&#8217;t aid them, did they know about any attempts to influence the election? If they knew and did nothing, that to me is tantamount to collusion &#8212; even if it doesn&#8217;t fit the legal definition of the word.<\/p>\n<p>We keep hearing reports of key Trump campaign advisers meeting with Russians during the campaign and then during the transition. It all gets back to the Watergate-era question posed by then-Sen. Howard Baker: What did the president know &#8212; and when did he know it?<\/p>\n<p>As for the whether the hacking\/meddling actually proved decisive, that they changed enough votes to swing the results in favor of Trump and away from Hillary Rodham Clinton, it doesn&#8217;t matter to me. What <em>does<\/em> matter is that they have done what all those intelligence agencies have said they did. The former director of the FBI has confirmed it to my satisfaction.<\/p>\n<p>If the Trump campaign colluded, dear reader, we are looking at a charge of<em> treason<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a frequent critic of Donald J. Trump, I want to set the record straight on a key issue that&#8217;s threatening the man&#8217;s presidency. I do not give a rat&#8217;s rear end about whether alleged attempts by Russian agents to influence the 2016 presidential election actually created a Trump victory. I accept the notion that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22279\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#8217;s get to the heart of this hacking matter<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[74,1424,6386,2139,6242,6755,7100,5051],"class_list":["post-22279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-national-news","tag-2016-election","tag-donald-trump","tag-fbi-probe","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-james-comey","tag-russian-hacking","tag-special-counsel","tag-us-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22281,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22279\/revisions\/22281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}