Bombshell: Moscow Thought Trump’s Attacks on Khans Showed Him ‘Psychologically Unfit,’ Certain GOP Would Dump Him

Report: ‘Why Vladimir Putin’s Russia Is Backing Donald Trump’

A third bombshell report by Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald was published Friday morning, revealing the depths of the Russian government’s backing of Donald Trump, including a tremendous and widespread hacking and disinformation campaign to support him. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC previewed the report Thursday night (video above.)

In the lengthy exposé, Eichenwald writes that the Russian government thought Trump’s weeks-long attacks on the Khans, the Gold Star family who addressed the Democratic National Convention, was so inappropriate it would lead Americans to dump him.

“Trump’s behavior, however, has at times concerned the Russians, leading them to revise their hacking and disinformation strategy,” Eichenwald reports. 

“For example, when Trump launched into an inexplicable attack on the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who died in combat, the Kremlin assumed the Republican nominee was showing himself psychologically unfit to be president and would be forced by his party to withdraw from the race. As a result, Moscow put its hacking campaign temporarily on hold, ending the distribution of documents until Trump stabilized, both personally and in the polls, according to reports provided to Western intelligence.”

And it appears the Russian government is funneling information – or disinformation – into the Trump campaign.

“Trump and his campaign have also spread propaganda created as part of the Kremlin’s effort, relying on bogus information generated through traditional Russian disinformation techniques,” Eichenwald charges. 

“In one instance, a manipulated document was put out onto the internet anonymously by propagandists working with Russia; within hours, Trump was reciting that false information at a campaign rally. The Trump campaign has also spread claims from Sputnik, another news outlet identified by American intelligence as part of the Russian disinformation campaign. For example, almost immediately after the posting of an article by Sputnik attacking this Newsweek reporter, the Trump campaign emailed a link to the piece to American reporters, urging them to pursue the same story.”

The article also dives into the great concerns our NATO allies have about Trump, including his apparent protection of Putin and the Russian government. 

During the final presidential debate, despite having been briefed by U.S. intelligence officials about Russia’s hacking, Trump on stage wholly denied Russia’s involvement.

“The words that so shocked the British were ‘our country has no idea,’ and ‘I doubt it,'” when Clinton accused the Russians of hacking, Eichenwald reports. “All of the NATO allies are sure Russia is behind the hacking. All of America’s intelligence agencies are, too. The foreign intelligence services had been sharing what they knew about this with the Americans, and Trump had been told about it.”

“But he blithely dismissed the conclusion of not only the United States but its allies as well, based on absolutely nothing. Trump had no apparent means of developing his own information to contradict the findings of intelligence agencies around the world. And that he would so aggressively fight to clear Putin, and cast aspersions on all Western intelligence agencies, left the British officials slack-jawed.”

The entire story is at Newsweek and worth a read. 

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license