Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   Russia Date:   7/14/2017 9:11:59 AM

This is their claim, such as it is.  They believe that Russian bots flooded key districts in Wisconsin, PA, etc. with fake news about Hillary that caused her to lose the supposed blue wall in the upper midwest.  They also claim that the only way these Russian bots would know where to focus their efforts is with guidance from the Trump campaign or one of its data analytics firms.  And of course we also have the whole Wikileaks issue which was supposedly acting as a proxy for the Russians in releasing Podestas, et al emails.

Not ascribing any agreement with their rationale, just sharing.  In my view there are a number of problems with these theories.  First of all, at the time these bots allegedly did their work no one, including the Trump campaign, thought it was possible for them to win those states. Second, the Russians didn't cause Hillary to pretty much ignore these states in the waning months of the campaign while she flooded the zone in California out of fear that Trump might win the popular vote.  Those decisions were stupid on pretty much every front. But that is with the advantage of hindsight and likely seemed like a good idea at the time.  Third, as has already been pointed out the release of the emails may have been humiliating to John Podesta, I have seen no evidence that it changed anyone's vote.

Hillary was a terrible candidate with tons of negative baggage and ran a terrible campaign.  She lost to probably the most easily beatable candidate in a long time.  My view is that Trump would have won regardless of any Russian interference, something by the way they have done in every campaign for a long, long time.  But suddenly now it is a big issue.....surprise, surprise.