Letters to the Editor for Thursday, July 27, 2017 – Lynchburg News and Advance

Russia? It's all just a lot of smoke

Russia has been meddling in American affairs since the beginning of the Cold War. Were they trying to sway the last presidential election? Who knows? Is there any evidence that Russia had any influence on the election? No, absolutely none. (I know what you are thinking: WikiLeaks, right? I will address that in a moment.)

No evidence exists that Russia affected one voting machine or one vote in any state. No evidence exists that Russia affected one vote from any Electoral College representative. In short, our current president was elected by a strong majority of electoral votes completely within the current legal framework of our election process. Whether anyone likes that election outcome matters about as much whether they like the outcome of the Super Bowl. There was no Russian meddling in the process of the election, period.

Did Russia affect American opinion during the campaign? Assuming former FBI Director James Comey is not a Russian operative, the only tangible thing anyone can point to which may have swayed any voters opinions were the infamous WikiLeaks email dumps. The contents of those emails did shed light on some unsavory opinions and actions of high-ranking DNC members. So what was the source of the WikiLeaks emails?

Russia denies any relation to them. Some intelligence agencies infused with numerous Obama appointments claim the emails came from Russian hacking, but they have shown no proof or electronic trail. In over 11 years of operation, like them or hate them WikiLeaks has never been proven wrong not once. And Julian Assange has repeatedly declared that the emails did not come from Russia or any government for that matter.

While he flatly refuses to reveal his sources, comments Assange has made in interviews seem to suggest a DNC staffer, Seth Rich, may have been the source. Rich was murdered at 4 a.m. and the case is still unsolved. Originally, it was labeled a robbery, but his possessions wallet, phone, watch were not stolen. Suspecting a cover-up, WikiLeaks has offered a $20,000 reward for Richs murderer.

WikiLeaks denies the emails came from Russia and the Russians deny it. The whole Russian meddling story was asserted to explain how the inevitable Hillary Clinton could have lost. It has no basis in fact of any kind. The Democrats insist that there is a lot of smoke that must be investigated. But it is only the smoke that they are blowing up Americas you-know-what to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in endless investigations, the only purpose of which is to find something, anything that they can use against Trump. These taxpayer funded investigations may be the most expensive and exhaustive opposition research campaign ever conducted in American political history.

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Letters to the Editor for Thursday, July 27, 2017 - Lynchburg News and Advance