Congressman Eric Swalwell is a Ranking Member of the CIA Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The California lawmaker has been one of the most outspoken members investigating Donald Trump’s ties with Russia (see video below). Recently, Swalwell, 36, laid out a point-by-point summary of how and why Russia is not a friend to America as Trump seems to allude.
From his website, Swalwell makes a concise synopsis on Russia that challenges Trump and even his most loyal supporters as to why we have a big problem the Euro/Asian country. Here are some of Swalwell’s reasons why:
Russia Threatens Important U.S. Allies
In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, destabilizing democracy and threatening security in the region. As a result of this destabilization, pro-Russian forces fighting in Ukraine were able to obtain and use a missile to shoot down a Malaysian Airlines passenger flight over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. And in recent months, Russia has intensified its military presence along its border with our Baltic allies—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. In light of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the continued militarization of the region is a troubling sign of further Russian aggression against U.S. allies and interests abroad.
In his section called: Russia Attacks Our Friends’ Elections, Swalwell highlights how Russian is clearly not a friend of democracy in other countries. The congressman cites Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul who says, “For years now, the Kremlin has looked for ways to disrupt democracies, to help the people that they like to come to power and to undermine the credibility of the democratic process.”
America is not Russia’s first cyber warfare target. Swalwell outlines how they have directed cyberattacks against foreign nations for the last ten years, and he lists some of Russia’s “most egregious attacks” in this timeline below.
Swalwell points out the above timeline only represents the publicly known attacks, and these acts of cyber warfare continue to go unanswered.
And then there is Russia’s attack on the freedom of the press. Swalwell states “Russia’s national news agenda is largely controlled by the Kremlin,” and adds that the editorial policy at its “state-owned television stations is managed by the government.”
The U.S. congressman says the Freedom House has counted at least 63 attacks on Russian journalists since 2006, including the killing of 20. Russia has proven it holds no respect for free press/free speech. Until Trump, this was a right that the United States held fundamentally “enshrined in our Constitution.”
He then goes into the war crimes committed by Russia.
Russian War Crimes
Russia continues to support the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose use of chemical weapons is intolerable and constitutes a war crime. Russian forces in Syria have appeared to deliberately target civilian areas of Aleppo. In a report presented by the Atlantic Council, satellite images, social media, surveillance footage, and eyewitness accounts outline Russia’s “indiscriminate” bombing of civilian areas of Aleppo. These attacks, which are responsible for killing and injuring civilians (including children) and for leaving a portion of the capital city without access to functioning hospitals, have been broadly condemned by the international community.
It’s well known that Russia has committed cyber attacks against America and meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections. Swalwell reminds us that just last month on March 15, 2017, the Justice Department charged two Russian intelligence officers with directing the hacking of 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014. Swalwell says the information the Russian government obtained from the hack was “used to focus on foreign officials, executives, and journalists, and steal Americans’ credit card and gift card information.”
In addition to the above, one of the most disturbing reasons why Russia is not a friend to America is its affiliation and support of one of American’s most dangerous enemies. Congressman Swalwell states:
Russia supports an American enemy
Recently, Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, the top U.S. military officer in Europe, said that he has seen growing Russian diplomatic and military influence on the Taliban in Afghanistan. General Scaparotti said, “I’ve seen the influence of Russia of late - increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban.” Since 2001, the U.S. has been at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, where more than 1,800 American troops have been killed.
During Barack Obama’s final national press conference, the two-term president reminded Americans that there has been Russian espionage for decades. What he didn’t mention is that the United States had been involved in espionage with Russia as well. The concept is not new. And to generalize an entire nation as being good or bad, judged only by their leaders can come back to haunt us as well. What is important here is that history has proven more often, that the policies and actions of Russian administrations have not been in our best interest. And when the president of the United States buddies up with the corrupt, murderous and anti-American Russian leader like Vladimir Putin, before and after the presidential election, we have a problem.
To understand the depths of this problem and Russia’s involvement in our democracy, we need as many facts and background data as we can get — and less opinions and suspicions. Eric Swalwell is giving Americans more necessary information enabling the public to gain a better perspective and make a more informed judgment about who our foreign allies are, and who are not. There is much more explanation and documentation contained on Swalwell’s website. Kudos to the congressman for doing legwork and bringing his findings into the public light. You can visit his page here: Swalwell.House.Gov.
One can watch Swalwell in action below in a YouTube clip of him questioning FBI Director James Comey during the March House Intelligence Committee hearings. The intentionally “loaded” questions the California congressman asked the head of the FBI gave the American people much more information about Trump than Comey would ever have been allowed to convey in his answers, thus proving Swalwell knows how to research and does not hesitate one bit to put it out there.
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