In a recent letter, a writer disputed my statement that the Russians manipulated our 2016 presidential elections. He states that I failed to give any proof of this accusation.

Maybe that’s because the evidence is so meager. I mean, among many other things, how could one possibly expect anyone to believe President Trump’s own intelligence team (Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo) all of whom stated in sworn testimony in public hearings that they accept the findings of the January 2017 document called “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, authored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and which represented the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.

One of the ODNI’s key findings was: “President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.

“We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. “Then, too, how could one possibly believe Trump’s team when they also concurred with a Homeland Security Department report which stated that:” nearly half of the U.S. states discovered that their election systems were targeted by Russia-affiliated hackers in an attempt to influence the 2016 election and that in a small selection of states, with only Illinois confirmed so far, the election systems were compromised successfully?

Most of all, how could one possibly expect anyone to believe Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. when they openly admitted their willingness to receive and use dirt from the Russian government on their opponent?

As VOX has reported: “The June 3, 2016 email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had been contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering to provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Hillary Clinton.”

The documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a trusted intermediary, who added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Donald Trump Jr. said he would love receiving the dirt and would put it to use. The President had this to say about his son’s meeting with the Russians. “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don Jr. attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!”

But who believes him? The letter writer is correct. There is no evidence any such thing as Russian interference in out elections ever happened. Steve Doucey and our other four FOX friends, Theresa Perillo and Sean Hannity have it right: It’s all fake news.

Tim Mannello

Williamsport

Submitted by E-Mail