Let’s be clear: Foreign interference has no place in American elections. There is a reason George Washington signed a Neutrality Act in 1794 making it illegal for Americans to take part in other nation’s wars and expelled Revolutionary France’s “Citizen” Genet when he attempted to incite opposition to the legitimately elected U.S. government. Washington understood that at best Genet had the best interests of France, not the United States, at heart, while at worst allowing him to operate would encourage the British to send agents of their own.
When Russian hackers successfully accessed and released the Clinton campaign’s internal emails, they could hardly have imagined they were setting off years of political strife that would culminate in an impeachment attempt and vindicate George Washington’s warnings. For the next four years, the dangers posed by foreign interference in our elections were made out to be among the most existential threats facing America by politicians, the media, and a long list of retired and current national security officials.
So, when a hostile foreign power like Iran is publicly revealed to have plotted the demise of Donald Trump – a presidential candidate who has already narrowly escaped two attempts on his life – you would expect those who warned of the dangers of Russian interference to shout their vindication from the rooftops. Or when hackers linked to the Chinese government hacked the emails of a major campaign and put them up for sale, one would think it would trigger solemn intonations about the threat to democracy. Likewise, a close aide to a foreign leader openly bragging about having recruited hundreds of foreign activists to aid an American political candidate should have brought Americans together.
Not, it appears, when the target of all this foreign interference is Donald Trump. Even when foreign actors like Iran are literally trying to kill him. It seems that when Donald Trump is the target, Democrats and their allies are all too willing to accept help wherever they can find it.
Iran’s murderous ambitions are no secret. U.S. intelligence agency officials briefed the Trump campaign this summer about Iran’s threats. Yet this concern has not been great enough to motivate the Biden administration to provide protection to former Trump administration officials, many of whom have had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on private security.
Nor has it led to steps to hold Iran accountable. As with most topics related to Iran, the Biden-Harris team seem to have thrown up their hands, treating the Iranian regime as if it is some sort of hurricane or force of nature no one can do anything about.
But even more stunning is the lack of media interest.
Imagine if it emerged that Vladimir Putin had ordered a hit on Kamala Harris. The media would be full of stories declaring Putin’s vendetta proof of the success of the Biden-Harris policy towards Ukraine, and speculation that it represented a Russian preference for Donald Trump. Implicitly there would be suggestions that a vote for Trump was a vote for Putin. That’s not even to mention the reaction of the Biden administration, which would likely pursue a military response.
Yet there is none of that here. Neither the media, nor the national security experts, want to concede that the elimination of Qasem Soleimani, much less the rest of Donald Trump’s Middle Eastern policy, was a success, especially at a time when the Biden-Harris approach is driving the region to the brink of total war. With no way to cover the story without making Donald Trump’s policies look good, the decision has been made to ignore this blatant aggression by a foreign power against our democracy.
Iran is hardly the only actor that has targeted the Trump campaign over the last few months. Chinese hackers have been busy attempting to break into secure databases. Unlike the Clinton campaign, where John Podesta was kind enough to click on exactly the sort of email link basic cyber-security training tells interns to avoid clicking upon, Chinese hackers have shown greater aggression, targeting not just the campaign but related organizations, including the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a think tank with close ties to Trump.
It is interesting to explore how the Associated Press manages to spin a story of the explicit targeting of the Trump campaign by hostile foreign actors into one in which innuendo is used to at best suggest neither campaign has been singled out and at worst that Trump is actually the recipient of foreign aid. According to the AP, “Iranian hackers have been blamed for targeting Trump campaign officials and the Justice Department has exposed vast disinformation campaigns orchestrated by Russia, which is said to favor Trump over Harris” (emphasis added).
Meanwhile China, the AP assures us, “is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be taking a neutral stance in the race and is instead focused on down-ballot races, targeting candidates from both parties based on their stance on issues of key importance to Beijing, including support for Taiwan.” This, despite the fact that China has explicitly targeted AFPI, Donald Trump, and JD Vance, along with trying to sell hacked Trump campaign emails online.
Iran, which senior Biden administration officials have confirmed has tried to kill Donald Trump, has merely “been blamed” for targeting Trump officials, while Russia is said to “favor”Trump over Harris.
But favored by whom? It clearly is not Vladimir Putin, who has on several occasions expressed a preference for the election of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, to the extent that a Russian official had to insist Putin was joking. That “clarification” made front-page news, but suggestions that the Kremlin has cooled on Donald Trump and no longer desires his victory have been relegated to foreign services like the BBC.
If Putin were to say he supported Donald Trump, is it possible to believe that would not drive political coverage for days or appear on front pages? Or that if a Russian official tried to walk-back those remarks claiming they were a joke, that the media would not be quick to cite this as further Russian misdirection to disguise their support for Trump?
It is not only with America’s adversaries that this double standard operates. Two weeks ago, Sophia Patel, the Director of Operations for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, bragged on LinkedIn about her efforts to recruit Labour Party staff, including local officials and parliamentary employees, to travel to the United States in order to aid the Harris campaign.
There was little ambiguity in Ms. Patel’s posts: “I havenearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” she wrote. “I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina – we willsort your housing.”
Nonetheless, CNN framed the complaint Trump’s lawyers filed with the FEC as a bid to “deflect election interference claims” by “igniting a spat with U.S. ally.” As if the Trump campaign’s motives had nothing to do with genuine, legitimate outrage at a foreign ruling party providing aid to an American political campaign, aid that may well have included not just illegal foreign donations but volunteers on the salary of foreign taxpayers.
Those concerns were absent at the June 2022 NATO Summit, when Joe Biden forced European leaders to stand beside him as he denounced his own Supreme Court, and then challenged them to echo his words. That is precisely the sort of thing George Washington warned against – American politicians demanding foreigners take sides in their domestic disputes.
Americans should consider this election week why so many foreign powers, especially those like China and Iran which even Democrats admit are enemies, are targeting Donald Trump. They clearly do not have our best interests at heart, and know Donald Trump does not have theirs. Which likely explains why so many on the left are so desperate to bury any evidence that, in their desire to stop Donald Trump, they and America’s enemies share a common cause.
Voters should not allow Democrats, foreigners, or anyone else to put America last.
Walter Samuel is the pseudonym of a prolific international affairs writer and academic. He has worked in Washington as well as in London and Asia, and holds a Doctorate in International History.
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