Tag: 2016 presidential election

A Growing Lack of Faith in Elections

Vladimir Putin may be winning as more Americans have come to distrust the election process.

AS LAWMAKERS, STATE elections officials and social media executives work to limit intervention in the 2020 elections by Russia and other foreign operatives, an unsettling truth is emerging.

Vladimir Putin may already be succeeding.

The troubling disclosures of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign – “sweeping and systematic,” special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in his report on the matter – have policymakers on guard for what intelligence officials say is a continuing campaign by Russia to influence American elections. But even if voting machines in all jurisdictions are secured against hacking and social media sites are scrubbed of fake stories posted by Russian bots, the damage may already have been done, experts warn, as Americans’ faith in the credibility of the nation’s elections falters.

View the complete May 10 article by Susan Milligan on The U.S. News and World Report website here.

This Russian oligarch reportedly bragged of his U.S. influence after Trump’s election — and he has a direct tie to Michael Cohen

Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The sprawling connections between Trump and Russia never end.

Viktor Vekselberg is among the Russian oligarchs that Michael Cohen came into contact with during his years as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. The 61-year-old Ukraine-born Vekselberg has had business and political contacts in the U.S. for decades—and after the 2016 presidential election, reportedly bragged about his ties to the Trump Organization.

“Soon,” Bloomberg News reports in a new article, “Trump would be in the White House, and Vekselberg would be privately boasting of having the pull needed to help achieve the sanctions relief the Kremlin was craving.”

But sanctions relief, according to Bloomberg, is the last thing Vekselberg experienced after Trump was sworn in as president—and his U.S. activities have cost him billions of dollars in the Trump era.

View the complete December 7 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet.org website here.

FBI obtained wiretap conversations of Kremlin-linked banker who met with Trump Jr: report

The following article by Josh Delk was posted on the Hill website May 26, 2018:

Credit: AP Photo, Ivan Sekretarev

The FBI has obtained wiretapped conversations of a Kremlin-linked banker who later met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 presidential election.

Spanish national police provided the FBI with tapes of Russian oligarch Alexander Torshin’s phone calls with a convicted Russian money launderer, according to a special prosecutor from Spain’s attorney general’s office, Yahoo News reported.

“Just a few months ago, the wiretaps of these telephone conversations were given to the FBI,” according to the special prosecutor, José Grinda Gonzalez, speaking at the Hudson Institute on Friday. Continue reading “FBI obtained wiretap conversations of Kremlin-linked banker who met with Trump Jr: report”

Cruz Spokesman Saw Suspicious Twitter Activity in 2016 Campaign

The following article by Rollcall Staff was posted on their website October 4, 2017:

Texas Republican drew “torrent of negative comments” when he criticized Trump

The former campaign spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz said whenever he criticized Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, his Twitter feed was attacked by trolls of suspicious origin. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Ron Nehring, campaign spokesman for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz during the 2016 presidential campaign, said Tuesday that online trolls of unclear origin flooded his Twitter feed whenever he was critical of then-candidate Donald Trump, but not when he attacked other GOP candidates.

“If I had said something critical about Marco Rubio, or John Kasich, or Ben Carson, there was no response on Twitter whatsoever, dead,” Nehring said about his cable news appearances on behalf of Cruz during last year’s campaign. “However, if I was critical of Donald Trump, I would get a torrent of negative comments on Twitter.” Continue reading “Cruz Spokesman Saw Suspicious Twitter Activity in 2016 Campaign”