This seems like a particularly trivial case of influence peddling for Merrick Garland to focus on. His bosses must really feel like they need a PR win. In the world of state funded propaganda, the Iranians have done more with less (they fund and shape the opinions of ~30% of the Democratic voter base) and the Chinese have done more with more, whether its planting spies in major state administrations, having spies sleep with members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, or engaging the President, his son, and the President's brother in get rich quick schemes for millions of dollars linked to CCP outfits.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation only last month said the Iranian government was behind a hack-and-leak operation against the Trump campaign. Federal investigators are looking into whether Turkey funneled money into New York Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign. Former Sen. Bob Menendez was convicted of bribery and other charges for providing favors to Egypt and Qatar, while Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar stands accused of accepting bribes from a government-owned Azerbaijani entity. It’s far easier to name a country that isn’t trying to influence us than one that is.
Contrary to many press accounts, these operations usually aren’t focused on putting a candidate in office. As Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged this week, the recent Russian operation—backed by the state media operation RT—worked to amplify “U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests,” most notably support for Ukraine. Foreign actors devote most of their efforts to setting Americans against each other, undermining faith in elections and in institutions.
The Justice Department and its media pack also do a grave disservice in overstating these destabilization efforts—and in the process, aiding them. The Russian ops are nasty and criminal, but also a drop of content in the vast, heaving universe of political commentary. They hardly compare to the many red-blooded Americans who don’t need foreign help to spread nut-job theories. The Justice Department should absolutely be shutting down foreign operations as they are found and making Americans aware of risks. But the grandiose press conferences and alarmed warnings of a “flood” of disinformation breed far more anxiety over the integrity of elections than anything Vladimir Putin is hoping for.