Updated | I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir
Putin—and, somehow, Donald Trump—seem to believe. And that should raise
concerns not only about Moscow’s attempts to manipulate this election, but also
how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters.
An email from Blumenthal—a confidant of Hillary Clinton and a man,
second only to George Soros at the center of conservative conspiracy
theories—turned up in the recent document dump by Wikileaks. At a time when American
intelligence believes Russian
hackers are trying to interfere with the presidential election, records
have been fed recently to Wikileaks out of multiple organizations of the
Democratic Party, raising concerns that the self-proclaimed whistleblowers
group has become a tool of Putin’s government. But now that I have been brought
into the whole mess—and transformed into Blumenthal—there is even more proof
that this act of cyberwar is not only being orchestrated by the Russians, but
that they are really, really dumb.
The evidence emerged thanks to the incompetence of Sputnik, the
Russian online news and radio service established by the government controlled
news agency, Rossiya Segodnya.
The documents that Wikileaks unloaded recently have been emails out of
the account of John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s election campaign.
Almost as soon as the pilfered documents emerged, Sputnik was all over
them and rapidly found (or probably already knew about before the Wikileaks
dump) a purportedly incriminating email from 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. Sputnik even
declared that the email might be the “October surprise” that could undermine
Clinton’s campaign.
To understand the full importance of the story—and how much Putin and
his Kremlin cronies must have been dancing with delight—I have to quote the top
few paragraphs:
In a major revelation from the second batch
of WikiLeaks emails from Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta it was learned
that Hillary's top confidante Sidney Blumenthal believed that the investigation
into Benghazi was legitimate because it was "preventable" and the
result of State Department negligence.
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.
Then came the money quote: "Clinton was in charge of the State
Department, and it failed to protect U.S. personnel at an American consulate in
Libya. If the GOP wants to raise that as a talking point against her, it is
legitimate," said Blumenthal, putting to rest the Democratic Party talking
point that the investigation into Clinton's management of the State Department
at the time of the attack was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt.
Those words sounded really, really familiar. Really familiar. Like, so
familiar they struck me as something I wrote. Because they were something I
wrote.
The Russians were quoting two sentences from a 10,000 word piece I wrote for Newsweek, which Blumenthal
had emailed to Podesta. There was no mistaking that Blumenthal was citing Newsweek—the
magazine’s name and citations for photographs appeared throughout the attached
article. The Russians had carefully selected the “of course” paragraph,
which mentions there were legitimate points of criticism regarding Clinton and
Benghazi, all of which had been acknowledged in nine reports about the terror
attack and by the former Secretary of State herself. But that was hardly
the point of the story, “Benghazi Biopsy: A Comprehensive Guide to One of
America’s Worst Political Outrages.” The piece is about the obscene
politicization of the assault that killed four Americans, and the article
slammed the Republican Benghazi committee which was engaged in a political show
trial disguised as a Congressional investigation—the tenth inquiry into the
tragedy.
Here is the real summation of my article, which the Russians failed to
quote: “The historical significance of this moment can hardly be overstated,
and it seems many Republicans, Democrats and members of the media don’t fully
understand the magnitude of what is taking place. The awesome power of
government—one that allows officials to pore through almost anything they
demand and compel anyone to talk or suffer the shame of taking the Fifth
Amendment—has been unleashed for purely political purposes. It is impossible to
review what the Benghazi committee has done as anything other than
taxpayer-funded political research of the opposing party’s leading candidate
for president. Comparisons from America’s past are rare. Richard Nixon’s
attempts to use the IRS to investigate his perceived enemies come to mind. So
does Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting during the 1950s, with reckless
accusations of treason leveled at members of the State Department, military
generals and even the secretary of the Army…The consequences, however, are
worse than the manipulation of the electoral process. By using Benghazi for
political advantage, the Republicans have communicated to global militants
that, through even limited attacks involving relatively few casualties, they
can potentially influence the direction of American elections.”
Of course, this might be seen as just an opportunity to laugh at the
incompetence of the Russian hackers and government press—once they realized
their error, Sputnik took the article down. But then things got even
more bizarre.
This false story was only reported by the Russian controlled agency (a
reference appeared in a Turkish publication, but it was nothing but a link to
the Sputnik article). So how did Donald Trump end up advancing the same
falsehood put out by Putin’s mouthpiece?
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.”
“This just came out a little while ago,’’ Trump said.
“I have to tell you this.” And then he read the words from my article.
“He’s now admitting they could have done something about Benghazi,’’
Trump said, dropping the document to the floor. “This just came out a little
while ago.”
The crowd booed and chanted, “Lock her up!”
This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy
disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for
president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How
did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight
from the Kremlin? (The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment).
Related Stories
The Russians have been obtaining American emails and now are presenting
complete misrepresentations of them—falsifying them—in hopes of setting off a
cascade of events that might change the outcome of the presidential election.
The big question, of course, is why are the Russians working so hard to damage
Clinton and, in the process, aid Donald Trump? That is a topic for another
time.
For now, though, Americans should be outraged. This totalitarian regime,
engaged in what are arguably war crimes in Syria to protect their government
puppet, is working to upend a democracy to the benefit of an American candidate
who uttered positive comments just Sunday about the Kremlin's campaign on
behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s arguments were an incomprehensible
explication of the complex Syrian situation, which put him right on the side of
the Iranians and Syrians who are fighting to preserve the government that is
the primary conduit of weapons used against Israel.
So no, Mr. Putin, I’m not Sidney Blumenthal. And now that you have been
exposed once again, get the hell out of our election. And Mr. Trump—you have
some explaining to do.
This story has been updated to include
information about Donald Trump's speech in Pennsylvania and a request for
comment from the Trump campaign.
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