“A Case of Severe Russophobia”: Moscow Issues Own Report On “RussiaGate” Investigation

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On April 18^th, the Russian Embassy in the US released a report in answer to the “RussiaGate” investigation, recently concluded by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The report, called “The Russiagate Hysteria: A Case of Severe Russophobia,” presents examples of a large number of accusations, as well as debunking of false claims part of “Russiagate.”

In its foreword, the document begins with an answer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to a journalist question from June 2^nd, 2017.

“It is an attempt to lay the blame at someone else’s door. This is not our problem. The problem is in US politics… The other team lost. They are reluctant to acknowledge the mistake. It is easier to say, “We are not to blame, the Russians are to blame, they interfered in our election.” It reminds me of anti-Semitism: the Jews are to blame for everything. We know what such sentiments can lead to. They lead to nothing good. The thing to do is simply to work and think of how to get things right.”

Then it continues with a comment by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from February 21^st, 2019. He said that the problem was rooted in the US’ domestic developments and that Russia didn’t start the issue. He also said he believed it was not some sort of punishment over Ukraine and Crimea.

According to him it began with Edward Snowden, then the Magnitsky case, Bill Browder.

He also said that the Democratic party’s loss in the US election was a large reason to seek the prevention of normalization of relations with Russia. He further noted that “contrary to what the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is trying to prove, there are solid facts showing that the Democratic Party violated the law when illegal methods were used to force Bernie Sanders to quit the race. Everyone has forgotten about this, talking about Russia all the time rather than about what is happening in the United States.”

Finally, Lavrov said that Russia was ready for dialogue over any issues, including on strategic stability, including the INF Treaty and a future possible agreement on strategic offensive arm, in addition to avoiding the militarization of space and cooperating in it.

Then the report presents the timeline of the main events surrounding the US elections and the claims of “Russian interference.” It is as follows:

1. May 18, 2016 – Director of the U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper reported that the American Intel community had found evidence of foreign spy services attempting to hack networks of the Democratic National Committee (the DNC).
2. June 14,2016 – “The Washington Post” for first time claimed that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC databases and gained access to internal information, but, as it would become a “tradition”, offering no proof and relying solely on “anonymous sources”.
3. June 15, 2016 – “Crowdstrike”, a computer security firm hired by the DNC to investigate the hacking, declared that “Russia was behind the cyberattack into the DNC servers”. The company representative said that it had identified two sophisticated adversaries -hacking groups “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear”, “linked to the Russian intelligence services”. There have been no facts proving anti-Russian allegations yet.
4. July 22, 2016 – “Wikileaks” released nearly 20 000 DNC internal emails. Eventually, it would publish more than 44 000 e-letters and 17000 attachments, showing the DNC bias in favor of Hillary Clinton and against her contender Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign. Despite the absence of evidence and numerous public rebuttals from Wikileaks the U.S. mass media and politicians can’t stop speculating that Russia was the source of the stolen DNC emails.
5. July 25, 2016 – the FBI confirmed it had opened an investigation into the hacking of the DNC servers (it later became known that the target of the probe had been Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the election and Trump campaign associates who had been allegedly involved in the conspiracy with the Kremlin).
6. July 25, 2016 – Republican candidate Donald Trump said: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find 30000 emails (-from the DNC) that are missing”. Despite sarcastic manner of this joke the phrase along with his other public promises “to get along with Russia” have been later used by the U.S. mainstream media as “a proof of his conspiracy with the Kremlin”.
7. July 29, 2016 – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee joined colleagues from the DNC and announced that its computer network had also been hacked.
8. October 7, 2016 – the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying the U.S. Intelligence community “is confident” that hacks into the email systems of the Democratic Party “were directed by the Russian government”. As usual: there was no evidence.
9. October 31, 2016 – the magazine “Mother Jones” published article summarizing the so-called “Trump dossier” (a set of unverified allegations of conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and the Russian Government), authored by Christopher Steele, a British former MI-6 officer (his name wasn’t disclosed at the time). The dossier was released in full by the news agency “Buzzfeed” on January 10, 2017. It was later revealed that Senator John McCain, who had been given Steele’s memos by former U.S. State Department official David Kramer, delivered them to FBI Director James Comey.
10. November 8, 2016 – Donald Trump is elected President of the United States. Shortly after Democrats and liberal media initiated an anti-Trump campaign with focus on peddling the “Russian interference” narrative spiked with the “Trump-Kremlin collusion” theme.
11. December 9, 2016 – President Obama announced his executive order to review “Russian hacks” during the 2016 presidential campaign.
12. December 29, 2016 – President Obama authorized “a number of actions in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the American elections in 2016” (anti-Russian measures included sanctions against Russian intelligence services, expulsion of 35 diplomats of the Russian Embassy in Washington and closure of two diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York).
13. January 6, 2017 – Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified intelligence report with “assessments” that stated U.S. Intel services “are high confident” that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. election”. The report said that Russian intelligence services had gained access to the DNC computer network for nearly a year from July 2015 to June 2016 and had released hacked material to Wikileaks “to help President-elect Trump”. Although this report contained no evidence of “Russian meddling” and “Collusion between Russia and Trump campaign” American media has continued to speculate about the alleged “Trump-Kremlin conspiracy” as well as the false narrative of “Russian interference in the U.S. political processes”.
14. January 20, 2017 – Donald Trump sworn in as the 45thPresident of the Unites States of America.
15. January 2017 – several Senate and House Committees announced congressional investigations of the “Russian activity during the 2016 campaign” with focus on “Russian meddling” and “Trump-Moscow collusion”.
16. February 13, 2017 – Presidential National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigned, following reports that he had misled the Vice-President about contacts with the Russian ambassador in December of 2017.
17. March 20, 2017 – FBI Director James Comey confirmed the Bureau’s investigation into links between Russia and members of the Trump campaign.
18. April 3, 2017 – The Russian side delivered an official proposal to the U.S. to hold a bilateral high-level group meeting on international information security. The American side ignored this document.
19. May 9, 2017 – Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. The White house statement said that the President acted “based on the clear recommendations of the Department of Justice” for Comey’s poor conducting of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s violations of classified information use. White House critics used this President’s decision to blame him for obstruction of the so-called “Russian probe”.
20. May 17, 2017 – Department of Justice appointed Robert Mueller as Special counsel to look into “Russian election interference and related matters”. The investigation’s scope included allegations about links or coordination between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government.
21. July 7, 2017 – first meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg. Mainstream media and American political establishment attacked the U.S. leader for “shameful and disgraced” contact with the Russian President and “his unusual friendliness towards Moscow”.
22. July 8-11, 2017 – On the next day after Russia-US presidential talks the “New York Times” published a series of “sensations” detailing the meeting between Donald Trump’s associates with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the “Trump Tower” hotel in New York in June 2016. The U.S. mainstream media used this story to promote conspiracy theory about “Trump-Russia collusion”.
23. July 17, 2017 – The Russian side delivered a draft memorandum on creation of the bilateral high-level working group on cybersecurity issues, following the discussion of this subject between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Hamburg on July 7. There was no reply.
24. July 27, 2017 – the U.S Congress approved the bill “Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act” that imposed broad restrictions mainly against Russia.
25. August 2, 2017 – President Trump signed the bill into law.
26. August 31, 2017 – the U.S. Administration announces unprecedented restrictive measures against Russian diplomatic and consular missions in the U.S. requiring to close the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, Consul General’s residence there as well as properties of the Trade Representation in Washington, DC and New York. This move was yet another violation of international law.
27. September 22, 2017 – the Department of Homeland Security notified U.S. election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their systems in 2016. Mass media accused Russia in those “cyberattacks”. There have been no facts presented yet.
28. October 2019 – U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said that “Russian interference is warfare”.
29. October 26, 2017 – Twitter said it would no longer accept ads from accounts owned by Russian news outlets “RT” and “Sputnik”.
30. October 30, 2017 – social media companies delivered to the U.S. Congress “alarming” reports claiming that Russian agents placed 1000 videos on YouTube, 131000 messages on Twitter, 120000 posts on Instagram and 80000 posts on Facebook which were viewed by up to 126 million people.
31. November 13, 2017 – under pressure from the U.S. Russian media outlet “RT” was forced to register as a foreign agent. The other Russian news agency “Sputnik” was filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Law a few days later -on November 17.
32. January 23, 2018 – Congressional Democrats called on “Facebook” and “Twitter” to urgently investigate and “combat Russian trolls and bots”.
33. February 7, 2018 – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested in an interview with “Fox News” that “Russia is already attempting to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections”.
34. February 13, 2018 – The heads of National Intelligence, CIA, FBI and NSA said during testimony to the Senate that “Russia is intent on disrupting foreign elections, including the 2018 midterms”. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said that “the U.S. is under attack from Russian efforts”.
35. February 16, 2018 – Special counsel R.Mueller indicted 13 Russian citizens, Internet-Research Agency and two other Russian entities for alleged “interference in the 2016 elections”. According to investigators, the defendants conducted “information warfare” to “sow discord” in the U.S. political system to help Donald Trump win.
36. March 12, 2018 – Republicans from the House Intelligence Committee announced the end of their investigation over the objections of the Democrats. Their findings are that Russia interfered to create discord, but “there was no evidence of collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and that Russia did not have a preference for Donald Trump as a candidate.
37. March 12, 2018 – State Secretary Rex Tillerson publicly blamed Russia of the supposed use of a nerve agent in the poisoning of Skripals in the U.K.
38. March 15, 2018 – President Trump imposed financial sanctions under CAATSA on 13 Russian government hackers and organizations indicted by Special counsel R. Mueller.
39. March 15, 2018 – the U.S. Administration accused the Russian government of a series of cyberattacks targeting Unites States and European nuclear power plants and electric grids.
40. March 20, 2018 – “the Washington Post” reported that President Trump failed to follow warnings from his advisers “not to congratulate the President-elect of Russia”.
41. March 26, 2018 – the U.S. Administration joined other Western countries and declared expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of Skripals.
42. April 6, 2018 – the U.S. Treasury implemented economic sanctions on 7 Russian businessmen and 12 companies along with 17 top Russian officials.
43. April 20, 2018 – the Democratic National Committee sued the Trump Campaign, the Russian government and Wikileaks for “election interference” in 2016.
44. July 13, 2018 – Special Counsel R. Mueller indicted 12 “Russian military intelligence officers for the hacking the DNC, the DCCC and the Clinton campaign for the purpose of stealing internal documents and distributing them in public as well as influencing the 2016 presidential election”.
45. July 15, 2018 – Russian citizen Maria Butina was arrested in Washington, DC on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian Federation working to infiltrate politically influential organizations in the U.S. and influence U.S. officials.
46. July 15, 2018 – magazine “the Business Insider” reported that “a new Russian intelligence-linked news-site USA Really attempted to test the waters ahead of the November midterms”.
47. July 16, 2018 – President Putin and President Trump met in Helsinki. Republicans and Democrats criticized the results of the meeting, calling the talks “disgraceful and detrimental to American democratic principles”. U.S. media reaction was almost universally negative. Under pressure upon arrival to Washington President Trump declared that he held Russia responsible for attempts at “meddling” in the U.S. elections in 2016.
48. July 20, 2018 – “Microsoft” claimed that Russian hackers had targeted three Congressional candidates running the 2018 elections.
49. July 26, 2018 – Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill declared that Russian hackers attempted to break into her Senate email account.
50. August 2, 2018 – Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that Russia “is actively interfering in the 2018 elections”.
51. August 2-8, 2018 – Democratic candidates Jeanne Shaheen, Bill Nelson and Tabitha Isner reported the attempts of Russian hackers to penetrate state election systems and compromise their campaigns.
52. August 6, 2018 – U.S. State Department summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian Embassy to answer for Russia’s alleged interference in the American internal affairs. However, the claims were, as usual, unverified.
53. August 31, 2018 – the first major documentary to address the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian state “Active measures” was distributed in theaters and digitally. The film was endorsed by Democrats and promoted by liberal activists before the 2018 midterms.
54. September 12, 2018 – President Trump issued executive order authorizing sanctions against individuals and governments for interference in the U.S. elections.
55. September 27, 2018 – Russian MFA delivers a diplomatic note to the U.S. side, regarding the case opened in the U.S. “Democratic National Committee v. the Russian Federation”, explaining that the exercise of jurisdiction over the case by U.S. courts with respect to the Russian Federation is a violation of the international law, notably violation of jurisdictional immunities of the Russian Federation.
56. October 4, 2018 – the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of 7 Russian military intelligence officers for cybercrimes including hacking into the World Anti-Doping Agency and leaking the test results of athletes. Four defendants had been previously accused by Special counsel R. Mueller for “interference in the U.S. election”.
57. October 19, 2018 – the U.S. Department of Justice charged Russian citizen Elena Khusyaynova with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by managing the finances of the Russian social media troll operation that attempted to interfere with the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections.
58. November 6, 2018 – the United States midterm elections were held.
59. November 11, 2018 – U.S. authorities in a show of harassment of media detained and interrogated Russian journalist A. Malkevich in a Washington DC airport.
60. December 21, 2018 – Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a statement on the Intelligence Community’s Response to Executive Order 13848 on Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election, declaring that the Intelligence Community does not have intelligence reporting that indicates any compromise of election infrastructure.
61. December 28, 2018 – Republicans from the House Judiciary Committee released final report on Russian probe, condemning the FBI for “unfair and politicized” investigation of “Trump collusion”.
62. January 3, 2019 – the new Congress convened with the House under Democratic control. Liberal Congressman Brad Sherman filed articles of impeachment against President Trump for the reason of his obstruction of justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
63. January 10, 2019 – the “New York Times” reported that the FBI had opened counterintelligence probe against President Trump a few days after he fired Bureau’s Director James Comey. The FBI leadership allegedly had been alarmed by the President’s actions and concerned that he may had been working for Russia against American interests. The investigations had been taken over by Special counsel R. Mueller.
64. January 29, 2019 – U.S. Intelligence services assessed that Russia along with other “adversaries” would seek to interfere in the 2020 presidential election “to advance its interests” during the testimony on the congressional hearings “Worldwide threats”.
65. February 5, 2019 – Acting Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland security submit joint report on impact of foreign interference on elections and political/campaign infrastructure in 2018, stating that there was no material impact of the abovementioned.
66. February 26, 2019 – American media claims that the U.S. military disrupted Internet access of the Russian Internet Research Agency on the day of U.S. elections of November 6, 2018. If true, then this is essentially an attack on a non-governmental entity based in another country.
67. March 22, 2019 – Special counsel R. Mueller concluded his investigation and submitted final report to the Department of Justice.
68. March 24, 2019 – Attorney General William Barr released a four-page letter to Congress highlighting the key findings of the Special counsel’s report. Barr stated that Mueller’s report outlined the Russian effort to influence the U.S. election but there was not sufficient evidence that President Trump colluded with Russia or obstructed justice. In total the Special Counsel’s office indicted 34 people -26 Russian citizens, 7 U.S. and 1 Dutch nationals. None of the Americans were accused of conspiracy with Russia.

Following the timeline, is a section presenting the “Main diplomatic actions taken by the Russian embassy in the US to protest provocative and illegal actions related to “Russiagate.”

The list outlines the many rejected requests for authorizations to visit Russian diplomatic properties that were seized by the US. Statements regarding requests for RT and other outlets to be registered as foreign agents, etc.

It outlines a large number of diplomatic notes to the US side, most of which were either just straight rejected or simply ignored.

The next section focused on “Groundless accusations made by the American media.”

The list includes some of the publications from the timeline, as well as others. Most of them are from the major publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and MSNBC.

The US media also undertook a campaign of demonizing the Russian Embassy, since there appeared to be no leaks from the Mueller investigation, which according to Lavrov was surprising, since leaks in the US usually happen just moments after anything is discovered.

These included accusations of longtime Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak, who is allegedly “at the center of the FBI’s Russia investigation.”

Following this is a section describing the “Reality” of events, in various articles and statements by Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The alleged “Persecution of Russian citizens and Business” is also presented, in various news articles outlining actions that the US government, or private businesses have undertaken against Russians. Some examples:

“Best Buy pulls Kaspersky Lab products after concerns over ties to the Russian government.”

“Person-to-person diplomacy’: Exchange program builds relationship with Russian Sister City”

There were also repeated accusations against Russian hackers’ activities, despite many governments admitting that there was no proof.

Then follows an extensive list of US officials and political leaders also accusing Russia without providing any evidence.

The final section of the report is a review of the Key claims of “Russiagate” and their debunking.

This section provides approximately 20 claims that were at the center of the investigation and the MSM hysteria around “Russiagate.”

The fact of the matter is the report “debunks” them, but mostly due to repeatedly saying that was no proof of it actually being fact, rather than an accusatory claim. Some, of course, have evidence, as they were presented documents that point to the contrast of the claims.

Finally, the conclusion of the report said that if the US is willing to listen and accept the reality of events, that would “not only contribute to the normalization of the Russian-American relations, but to the healing of the political discourse in the U.S. as well.”

“In the end, to quote Russian President Vladimir Putin “we have been saying from the start that this commission led by Mr. Mueller won’t find anything, because no one knows better than us: Russia has not interfered in any U.S. election.”

As the President noted, allegations of collusion between Trump’s camp and Russia “is sheer nonsense designed exclusively for domestic consumption and used in the internal politics of the US.”

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Russian Foreign Ministry’s Official Comment On Robert Mueller’s Investigation Over ‘Trump-Kremlin Conspiracy’
• ‘Russian Probe’ Spent Over $30M And 2 Years To Find No Conspiracy Between Trump And Moscow

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