Happy Hour News

Pooty helped (or tried to help) Lord Damp Nut in the 2020 Goat Rodeo, because it worked so spectacularly well for him in 2016:

US intelligence report says Russia used Trump allies to influence 2020 election with goal of ‘denigrating’ Biden

The US intelligence community said in a landmark report Tuesday that the Russian government meddled in the 2020 election with an influence campaign “denigrating” President Joe Biden and “supporting” former President Donald Trump, detailing a massive disinformation push that successfully targeted, and was openly embraced, by Trump’s allies.

Russia’s objectives were not limited to hurting Biden’s candidacy and aiding Trump’s reelection bid, the report says, as US intelligence found that Moscow also sought to undermine “public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbate sociopolitical divisions in the US.”

I’d say Putin WILDLY succeeded as the Stupid Coup demonstrated, and how all the Republicans are still carrying water to limit democracy in all of the Russia’s satellite , er, Red States. You know, useful idiots that are trying to stop you from voting.

It also confirms what was largely assumed, and barely hidden, last year: Trump and his closest allies publicly embraced Russia’s disinformation campaign against Biden, met with Kremlin-linked figures who were part of the effort, and promoted their conspiracy theories.

OK, the emphasis is mine, but I think it is correctly placed:

That echoes what the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber arm said the day after the 2020 presidential election. “We have no evidence any foreign adversary was capable of preventing Americans from voting or changing vote tallies,” CISA said at the time.

But domestic adversaries? You bet:

Russia used people close to Trump to spread disinformation

Russia’s efforts to influence the 2020 elections feature prominently in the report, which details how “proxies linked to Russian intelligence” were used to push unsubstantiated claims about Biden to into the American mainstream.

“A key element of Moscow’s strategy this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives — including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden — to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration,” the report says.

[Cough. Newsmax. Cough. OAN. Cough. Fox. Cough.]

“The Intelligence Community Assessment released today underscores what we all knew already — that Russia interfered to support former President Trump, hurt President Biden, and undermine confidence in our electoral process. Through proxies, Russia ran a successful intelligence operation that penetrated the former president’s inner circle,” Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Tuesday.

I hope that Intelligence continues to turn over stones and seeing what crawls out.  Sooner or later it will be TFG hisself.