Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/08/30/putins-spokesman-confirms-it.html
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So are all these bits and pieces ever going to add up to something significant?
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I’d prefer a slow fade into obscurity for the whole debacle.
Also: “malicious intent” / “tempered by incompetence” is a great Band Name / Album Name.
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But why would Dmitry Peskov confirm this? He’s not obliged in any way to provide this information.
My best guess, and that is only a guess, is that they’re just enjoying the sight of the Trump team squirming.
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I’m inclined to agree that the Russians are enjoying watching the Trump team squirming. Also, it makes them look less like the bad guys since they are, in a sense, cooperating with the investigation.
Personally, I love the bit about “malicious intent tempered by incompetence”. The more I read about all this, the more it starts to look like the equivalent of an Adam Sandler remake of “Oceans 11”.
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Maybe because his employer is Putin who is happy to create chaos here in the US. Once Putin seemed to understand that Trump has too much heat on him to do anything to cancel the Magnitsky act it seems like Russian “Leaks” have been fairly consistent.
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And anywhere else. He sees politics as a zero-sum game, and believes he can whether chaos better than his enemies.
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Chaos is a ladder; but where does it lead?
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So it’s all fake news, until Russia confirms it…then it’s real news?
I’m so freaking confused.
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(it’s a Russian spoiler)
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I think when things like this come out of Russia, they’re attempting to steer Trump. Trump knows they have the goods on him. Little things like this are warning shots.
Also, what the heck. In what world would this email facilitate a multi-billion dollar real estate investment? I don’t have any experience with international real estate deals or backroom cigars-and-caviar geopolitical scheming, but I feel pretty certain this is not remotely how things are done.
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This. Russia’s goal from the start wasn’t to strengthen Trump, it was to weaken America.
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Peskov said it was one of many emails the Kremlin press office gets — since its email address is available online — and that the Kremlin did not reply to it.
Cohen admitted on Monday that Trump’s company had been working to land a project in Moscow during the presidential primary, but it fell through.
Someone out there is already writing a satire piece in the form of a Nigerian prince scam message, I’m sure. And no doubt it will prove to be alarmingly prescient when the actual message comes to light, because satire is dead.
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Sounds like a good McSweeneys piece
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The most likely answer is because it’s the response that would at this point in time keep the chaos in the US churning.
It’s a mistake to think that Putin’s government supports Trump and wants to see him succeed. Their aim seems to be to discredit the US among our allies, cause chaos in US domestic issues, and generally get the US to marginalize itself on the world stage. A secondary goal seems that it might be to discredit the idea of democracy as a stable form of government. If those are the goals, then Russian actions as a whole make a lot more sense because they alternate between leaking info that makes Trump look bad and doing things to lend him support.
(It also makes the actions of Russian propagandists on Twitter and other social media make more sense - they’re out there in force posing as Americans on both the left and the right. And it isn’t just to discredit one side or the other - they seem to be happy making people look like idiots on all sides and keeping the chaos roiling as much as possible.)
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“I’m in love with this malicious intent”
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