On ABC’s This Week, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign manager Robby Mook claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed Russia’s intelligence apparatus to hack the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton loyalist John Podesta in order to politically assist then presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Joining Trump’s first presidential campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in a discussion hosted by Jonathan Karl, Mook pushed innuendo of cooperation between Trump and Putin to subvert America’s presidential election:
“Paul Manafort’s connections to the Russians are clear. They paid him a lot of money to help get candidates elected that they wanted in the Ukraine. It’s not surprising to me that they might be trying the same thing here in the United States.
And what’s particularly frightening to me about the situation is that these phone calls that Trump associates had with Russian agents were picked up because the NSA taps these Russian agents regularly. This isn’t speculation. These are phone calls that were actually picked up. And what’s also scary is that you saw the president kind of deflect the question. He won’t answer it. And the more we learn about this, the closer and closer it gets to President Trump.”
Asked by Karl if he believed the “Trump campaign was coordinating with the Russians,” Mook called for a “9/11-style bipartisan independent commission” to investigate. “This can never happen again,” he added.
Mook alleged that Putin assisted Trump’s political campaign due to resentment of Clinton’s “courage” in speaking out against Russian belligerence in Ukraine’ Crimean peninsula:
MOOK: But this is the problem, Jonathan, is blame the victim. It’s to say, OK, well, in fact the Russians stole John Podesta’s e-mails. They put them out for the purpose of hurting Hillary Clinton. That’s absolutely correct. And my point is — and I think the point of the national intelligence community and everybody else — is that’s wrong. We cannot have foreign governments interceding in our elections.
…(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Does anybody really think that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump? Does anybody in this room really believe that, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL:: You weren’t in room but I imagine you think that.
MOOK: I absolutely think that. You know, the reason Vladimir Putin did this is because Hillary Clinton spoke out against him. She spoke out against frankly the same kind of behavior that we’re starting to hear Donald Trump hint at. And when Donald Trump has been asked about Vladimir Putin, he’s praised him. He’s called him a strong leader. Gave him an A rating. When he was asked on the O’Reilly show about Putin’s tactics of killing journalists, of intimidating journalists, of locking up and killing his opponents, he said that — you know, he compared that to America. He said we’re not that innocent either.
…
The problem is that Vladimiur Putin devastates and destroys his enemies. He’s been devastating and destroying the Syrian people. And Hillary Clinton spoke out against that. She had the courage to do that and she paid a price because Vladimir Putin interceded in this election.
Mook repeated his narrative on Twitter:
Several times throughout the segment, Karl pushed the Clinton campaign’s narrative of consensus among all national intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the hacking into and release of emails from the DNC and Podesta, asking Lewandowski, “But you don’t doubt that the e-mails, the hacking of the e-mails, that was done by the Russians?”
Karl presents himself as an objective and non-partisan news media personality.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.
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