‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#271

Post by tim333 » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 8:21 PM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #246

tim333 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the most memorable was the Russians hacking the Democrats emails. Also Trump's lot meeting with the Russians before hand and the 100s of Russian troll accounts with names like American Patriot. I mean I know a lot of countries try to influence elections but is was all getting like something from a spy novel. I'm not American and not hugely partisan on the right/left thing but I think the whole world was watc…

>Also Trump's lot meeting with the Russians before hand and the 100s of Russian troll accounts with names like American Patriot. No one is alleging collusion between Russia and Trump, so you are alluding to baseless conspiracy theories here. >Obviously the Russians were trying to help Trump and may have swung things a little given that the vote was so close. Suggesting that American elections are insecure and have be…

Not really - there's a load of info on what went on on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

The Russians trying to help their prefered candidate wasn't so different to any number of other people and organisations trying to do similarnexcept they broke some laws.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#272

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Nov 09, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #252

cwkoss wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason russian influence entered the zeitgeist was a PR push from people who worked in the HRC campaign and DNC insiders who needed to blame Trumps win on external factors to distract from their "pied piper" strategy of deliberately elevating trump during the primaries because they thought he would be easy to beat. ( https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaig... ) There is no evidence (afaik) th…

Election interference need not be measured by its impact to be illegal. Maybe it swayed the election maybe it didn’t, but the individual in the article just admitted to the crime he was indicted for as a result of the Muller report.

Does legality even matter? I doubt Putin will be willing to extradite his 'chef' because he harmed america's interests for russian benefit.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#273

Post by glaucon » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 4:14 AM UTC

ihatepython wrote: post #151

subsubzero wrote: post #9

Fun fact, many, many other foreign governments have "interfered" in our elections also. In addition the US has interfered in their elections as well. Its been happening for a very long time.

Yes. Nobody seems to care that the US interfered in the 2000 Russian election. Putin came to power as a result of the US interference, after blackmailing Boris Yeltsin and forcing him to step down. In effect, the US is responsible for putting Putin in power. The media demonizes Putin getting everybody to hate him, and the average person (including HN) goes along with it, because they don't know any better, even thoug…

> Yes. Nobody seems to care that the US interfered in the 2000 Russian election

I'd be interested to hear more about this ... do you have links to a summary ?

> Putin came to power as a result of the US interference, after blackmailing Boris Yeltsin

I'm not clear if you mean Putin blackmailed Yeltsin or the US blackmailed Yeltsin ? What was the blackmail over ?

From a brief bit of reading and what memory I have Yeltsin was having various ...

- health ("months in hospital" [1]),

- political (four prime ministers in eighteen months [2])

- and, allegedly, criminal (government contractor providing Yeltsin and family with "we pay the bills" credit cards [3])

... problems so him going of his own accord doesn't seem impossible ?

Also wasn't it the case that you could only do two terms as President until Putin fixed it so he could reign for ever ? If that was the case then Yeltsin wasn't going to be able to run again anyway ?

I'm open to the idea that the CIA was, as is traditional, shooting itself in the foot, and there may have been US elements who felt that Boris was dangerously unpredictable but it does seem that there was other things going on which might have led to his demise ?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin#1996%E2%80%93199...

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/415087.stm

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jan/28/russia.iantray...

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#274

Post by AzzieElbab » Tue, Nov 15, 2022, 3:09 AM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #270

AzzieElbab wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not entirely true. According to Ukrainian sources (Kiev Independent) there were at least 2 high profile incidents. 1 - US supplied weapons popping up in Finland, 2 - someone tried to ship a helicopter out of Odesa. But this is not what I am saying at all. How would you even know how funds are being used? A manufacturer can hike prices of say ammo 10x, and as result Ukraine would get 10x less of it

Not sure if you’re shilling on purpose but 1) no, Kiev Independent never reported on foreign supplied guns in Finland, “New Voice of Ukraine” did, using a statement by Finnish FBI (NBI) that was mischaracterized and explicitly corrected by NBI about 7 days ago. They say they are watching closely but have no evidence of what you’re alleging. 2) Couldn’t find anything about the helicopter, link? You can “just ask quest…

who do you think I am shilling for? Pretty sure Kiyv Independent twitted about this https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/31/mi-2-helicopter-disco... maybe deleted later

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#275

Post by awb » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #272

awb wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election interference need not be measured by its impact to be illegal. Maybe it swayed the election maybe it didn’t, but the individual in the article just admitted to the crime he was indicted for as a result of the Muller report.

Does legality even matter? I doubt Putin will be willing to extradite his 'chef' because he harmed america's interests for russian benefit.

To foreign entities, it probably only matters in terms of international relations.

To domestic entities, the laws of the land certainly matter. If an adversarial foreign entity is breaking domestic laws without penalty, then domestic entities can focus more on the preventative aspect of enforcement of the law.

But yeah, if you have no enforcement and no deterrence then the law might as well not exist.