Trumpravda | The Ashford Zone

The topic of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia is a recurring theme in this campaign.

Trump has spoken well of Putin. He seems ignorant that Russia invaded the Ukraine. When criticized for being soft on Russia, Trump responds with the simplistic, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the US got along with Russia?”

All of the above, I could dismiss as ignorance or naivete from a man who has no business running foreign policy. But what troubles me is this:

On Monday, portions of the latest Wikileaks discharge were published by the Russian news service Sputnik, including what seemed to be a particularly damning sequence in an email from long-time adviser Sidney Blumenthal.
The email was amazing—it linked Boogie Man Blumenthal, Podesta and the topic of conservative political fevered dreams, Benghazi. This, it seemed, was the smoking gun finally proving Clinton bore total responsibility for the terrorist attack on the American outpost in Libya in 2012.
Here’s how that email was reported in Sputnik.
In an email titled "The Truth" from Hillary's top confidante Sidney Blumenthal, the adviser writing to undisclosed recipients said that "one important point that has been universally acknowledged by nine previous reports about Benghazi: The attack was almost certainly preventable" in what may turn out to be the big October surprise from the WikiLeaks released of emails hacked from the account of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta.
And by evening, what had started the day with Russian intelligence had gone from them, to Wikileaks, to Sputnik, to Donald Trump.
At a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump spoke while holding a document in his hand. He told the assembled crowd that it was an email from Blumenthal, whom he called “sleazy Sidney.”
The whole thing was a lie, composed by carefully clipping the email to find the damning phrase. But Donald Trump did his job. He spread the message from Russian intelligence to his followers, where it can fester and do the most damage to America.

And this:

ON FRIDAY, while much of the country was preoccupied with the latest revelations about Donald Trump, the U.S. intelligence community made an alarming and unprecedented announcement: Russia was seeking “to interfere with the U.S. election process” through the hacking of political organizations and individuals, including the Democratic National Committee. The statement rightly alarmed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who said in Sunday night’s debate that “we have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election.”

And Mr. Trump? Once again, the GOP nominee played the part of Vladimir Putin’s lawyer. “She doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking,” he said of Ms. Clinton. “Maybe there is no hacking.” Mr. Trump is receiving classified intelligence briefings, so he is certainly aware of the evidence that hackers backed by Moscow have stolen email and other records from the DNC and tried to penetrate state electoral systems. So why does he deny it? Mr. Trump’s advocacy on behalf of an aggressive U.S. rival, and the opaqueness of his motivation, is one of the most troubling aspects of his thoroughly toxic campaign.

And this:

Astonishing: NBC’s Bob Wildrem reports intel community furious with Trump for “willful misrepresentation” of his briefing on Russian hacking

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) October 10, 2016