The Senate investigation into Jill Stein reveals the xenophobic, anti-democratic direction of Russiagate
The
Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded all of Jill Stein’s
campaign communications with “Russian persons.”
By
Max Blumenthal
Part
2 - Suppressing RT and criminalizing diplomacy
In its
reference to “Russian media,” the Senate committee was clearly
referring to RT, which provided Stein with an occasional platform
during the 2016 campaign. (She also appeared regularly on mainstream
cable news programs and in a CNN town hall). By singling out Stein’s
public appearances on RT, the committee painted the Russian-backed
news network in essentially the same light that Mike Pompeo’s CIA
cast Wikileaks: as a “hostile foreign intelligence agency.”
Stein’s campaign is nevertheless cooperating on this front and
providing all documents related to her RT interviews.
The
Senate appeared to base its view of RT on the January 2017 DNI report
on Russian interference. While failing to provide hard evidence of
Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the 23 page DNI report
contained seven pages of crude content analysis of two RT programs
that are no longer on air, accusing both of fomenting “radical
discontent.” The DNI report went on to frame a third party debate
hosted by RT America as an act of Russian information warfare. (The
national cable satellite industry funded outlet C-Span has hosted
nationally televised forums for third party candidates during the
past two presidential elections).
Jill
Stein was a guest at RT’s 10th anniversary celebration, where she
appeared at a gala dinner and public media forum in Moscow in 2015. I
was also a guest at the event, and interviewed Stein this year about
her participation. She emphasized that she paid her own way to Moscow
and had no opportunity for any substantial discussions with Russian
President Vladimir Putin or any other high-level Russian official.
I asked
Stein what took place when Putin arrived at her table. “Putin
briefly ran around the table and shook everyone’s hand. No names
were exchanged, it was an impersonal greeting,” she recalled.
“There was nothing about that table that facilitated any
communication of any sorts. The one person there who spoke English
and Russian fluently was sitting next to Michael Flynn and translated
what he said was the conversation between Flynn and Putin. It
amounted to something to the effect of, ‘How are you? I’m fine.'”
Stein
told me she had requested a moment with Putin or Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss US-Russian cooperation on nuclear
non-proliferation and de-escalating the conflict in Syria. “Hillary
Clinton was promoting a no-fly zone in Syria, which would have put us
in the position of shooting down Russian planes when we have 2,000
nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. So communication with your
adversaries was important and we were in a crisis at the time. Our
[Green Party] communications were exemplary,” she asserted.
“They were content-focused, not about quid pro quo or any
backroom deals. They were on target and in the words of JFK, I
believe we should never negotiate out of fear, and never fear to
negotiate.”
In the
end, Stein was able to meet only with the foreign affairs chair of
the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. A statement
posted on Stein’s campaign website outlined her agenda for the
meeting: “a new commitment to collaborative dialogue between our
governments to avert disastrous wars for geopolitical domination,
destruction of the climate, and cascading injustices that promote
violence and terrorism.”
To the
Senate committee, however, the mere presence of Stein at a banquet
table with Putin for a total of two minutes indicated that a sinister
plot was afoot. Its inquiry into Stein appears to have been based
largely on allegations contained in the so-called Steele Dossier.
That document was a collection of unverified claims cobbled together
by a former MI5 agent named Christopher Steele, who was paid by the
DNC and the Clinton campaign. According to journalist Howard Blum,
Steele relied on “an army of sources whose loyalty and
information he had bought and paid for over the years.” James
Comey’s FBI attempted to fund the continuation of the dossier, but
the arrangement fell apart after Steele’s identity was publicly
exposed.
By
demanding all Green Party policy communications related to Russia,
the Senate committee has sent the message that independent parties
risk official retribution for bucking the Washington consensus. Its
request is only the latest blow to any hope for detente between
Washington and Moscow, and another reason why serious discussions
between officials of the two nuclear powers will likely have to take
place through secret back channels until well into the foreseeable
future.
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