“Collusion” is a term that’s been used heavily in the news over the last year. Yes, the Trump campaign had plenty of connections to Russian officials, and yes, they cheered on the hacking events that dumped emails from the DNC and personal accounts of Democratic workers. But was there actually collusion with the Russians? If there was, what would it look like?
As it happens, there’s a fantastic example of a Republican in Florida who did just that: Colluded with the Russians over their efforts to interfere in the election. Aaron Nevins is an organizer for the Florida Republican Party. He’s a former chief of staff for a state senator who runs two consulting companies. He helps with local candidates, “grass root” efforts, and is the man behind the website “HelloFLA!.” When the news first broke that DNC accounts had been hacked, Nevins did what any good registered lobbyist and political consultant might do—he asked to get in on it.
When Guccifer 2.0 issued an open invitation to any journalist who wanted information, Nevins said he responded affirmatively through a Twitter message. He said he didn’t follow up and didn’t hear anything for 10 days.
Guccifer 2.0 responded shortly before the Florida primary contests in August, he said. Guccifer 2.0 wanted to know his email capacity, and Nevins said he set up a Dropbox account that allowed him to receive a large volume of data — which the hacker deposited there.
Shortly before the Florida primary, the Russian hackers fronted by “Guccifer 2.0” dumped over two gigabytes of email on this GOP operative. How did he respond? He helped them sort through what they had, helped validated the information, and worked with them to explain what needed to be emphasized, and how to get the greatest value from their hack …
… going through what the hacker sent as someone who “actually knows what some of these documents mean,” the GOP consultant said he “realized it was a lot more than even Guccifer knew that he had.”
And that’s a definitive example of collusion.
Nevins informed “Guccifer” that some of the older information was lacking impact and selected some items to push to the top.
Seeing that some of what Guccifer 2.0 had was months old, Mr. Nevins advised the hacker that releasing fresher documents would have a lot more impact.
More than that, Nevins saw that there was a real diamond in the data.
More impressed after studying the voter-turnout models, Mr. Nevins told the hacker, “Basically if this was a war, this is the map to where all the troops are deployed.”
At another point, he told the hacker, “This is probably worth millions of dollars."
By identifying that elements of the Democratic GOTV effort were described in the plan, Nevins was able to identify information that was helpful to both local GOP officials and helpful to a Russian campaign of disinformation and deception. He helpfully sent what he found both ways.
There was all sorts of information, including analyses of data about places and kinds of people that Democrats figured were their biggest sources of voters who could be persuaded to vote their way. And there was also research that revealed what the Democrats saw as vulnerabilities of their own candidates.
Where the GOP used it directly in securing local races.
“I did adjust some voting targets based on some data I saw from the leaks,” said Anthony Bustamante, a campaign consultant to Republican congressional candidate Brian Mast. Mr. Bustamante said the Democratic voter analyses led him to amp up some of his TV ad buys and reduce some mailed material ahead of the November election. Mr. Mast won a House seat, previously Democrat-held, in Florida’s 18th district near Palm Beach.
How much Nivens analysis also helped the Russians isn’t clear. But his work in sorting through the wealth of information to identify the documents of worth and inform the hackers on how to generate the most impact from what they had was undoubtedly valued. And unquestionably collusion.
If anyone in the Trump campaign followed the same route, not just benefiting from Russian activities, not just encouraging those activities, but passing along information to help refine and optimize the damage Russia could do in the election … it won’t be the least bit surprising.
If you read nothing else, read this ...
He isn’t convinced the Russians were behind it, Mr. Nevins said, but even if they were, it doesn’t matter to him because the agenda of the hackers seemed to match his own.
“If your interests align,” he said, “never shut any doors in politics.”
Republican consultant doesn’t care if the Russians were behind interference in our election so long as “interests align” with his own. That’s the sick story of this last year.