Last night at the Democratic National Convention in Philly, former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta blasted Donald Trump over foreign policy, calling a vote for him “deadly serious,” but several delegates tried to shout him down during his speech. Delegates from Oregon erupted, briefly interrupting his remarks by chanting “No More War!” Other groups around the arena began chanting “Hillary!” More chants of “Love Not War!” and “No More Drones!” broke out before being swallowed by “USA!” from most of the arena.
Panetta continued his speech, attacking Trump for being inexperienced.
“Today, Donald Trump once again took Russia’s side,” Panetta said. “He asked the Russians to engage in American politics. Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump wants to be President of the United States…is asking one of our adversaries to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts against the United States of America to affect an election.”
Now, I know it's been a LONG time, but Leon might want to consider that former President Bill Clinton signed treaty with Russia mandating cooperation on criminal matters affecting both nations. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (that’s a state.gov link to the PDF document just so you know) between the United State of America and the Russian Federation was signed in Moscow on June 17, 1999.
So, when Trump addressed the rumors of Russia being responsible for leaking incriminating Democratic National Committee emails by saying, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” the Democrats lost their freaking minds!
People are going so far as to claim that Trump committed espionage. Clinton’s senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, even said, “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent.”
What Exactly IS Espionage?
The Espionage Act (U.S. Code §§ 792-799) refers to certain types of classified information that are “knowingly and wilfully communicate[d],” or the gathering or delivering of defense information “with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation.”
Donald Trump is not suspected of gathering or delivering information. But is he asking Russia to commit espionage?
First, he would HAVE to KNOW the content of Hillary Clinton‘s missing emails for that to be the case. He would then HAVE to KNOW the content is related to defense, codes, or communication intelligence. Trump would also HAVE to believe that Russia accessing the emails, would harm the U.S. or benefit Russia.
So NO Donald Trump is NOT guilty of committing or inciting cyber-espionage. As much as the Democrats wishes he were.
The very fact that so many Democrats are freaking out and even use the word espionage tells me Hillary Clinton knows good and well there was more to those deleted emails than discussions about her daughters wedding. Furthermore, she had claimed there were communications between she and her husband but we all know Bill Clinton hates email and rarely, if ever, used email.
So there you have it. The BIG news that detracted from news discussions surrounding Bill Clinton’s Nicholas Sparks-esque speech and the first woman to ever be nominated as a presidential nominee – well, that big news turns out to be worthless.
It is called SARCASM folks.
And here I used to think, when I was a Democrat, that Conservatives were stiff and lacked a sense of humor. Boy was I wrong. That’s just one more example of how distorted my vision was while wearing those liberal goggles.
