Originally published on July 16, 2021. Republished with minor grammatical edits and spelling corrections.
On July 15, 2021, the Guardian ran a front-page exclusive story based on a document purported to have been leaked from the Kremlin concerning Russia’s 2016-vintage plans to help Donald Trump win that year’s US Presidential election1. Essentially, the article relates the contents of this document, which can be summarised into the following key points:
- The Russian government had assessed Trump as both “mentally unstable” and the most desirable presidential candidate.
- In addition, some blackmail material to use against Trump personally was, at the time, in possession of the Russian government.
- Russian intelligence agencies were directed to support Trump’s electoral campaign to the extent feasible.
- This support included efforts to “delegitimise” the American political system – and the president-elect – in the eyes of voters.
The intent of this post is not to address these claims – because when I finally do get around to writing around “Russiagate”, there is plenty of other material to go through besides this “exclusive” story. Instead, I wanted to highlight a couple of aspects, nay, properties of the article which immediately raise red flags from both editorial and analytical perspectives.
First, the document itself. As of this writing, the Guardian has not actually provided it for public inspection. Instead, the reader must rely solely on the Guardian’s summary of its contents, as well as two screenshots amounting to a couple of abbreviated paragraphs of text, one of which contains an obvious spelling error as well as an…unusual turn of phrase to a native Russian speaker. There does not seem to be any reason for the document not to be released, unless, somehow, its full contents jeopardise US or UK national security. Surely there might be additional tidbits in the text that the reporters had missed, or had judged insignificant. Surely the document’s provenance and authenticity could be better confirmed by an open, public examination. Surely the Russian government could not simply deny everything by alleging that the document is a fabrication if said document were produced.
“…and don’t call me Shirley…”
The second red flag feeds into the first. We are told by the Guardian that the document had been shown to anonymous independent experts, and these have found that it appears genuine. This begs the question of why said experts must indeed remain anonymous, and whether an “onymous” individual or organisation might not be found to offer an on-the-record opinion. Surely at least one such reputable person or organisation must exist, somewhere2. In fact, the Guardian also tells us that some “western intelligence agencies” have, in fact, reviewed the document or documents “carefully”. We are not told what conclusions were reached by these agencies, of course, which raises yet another red flag – one recalls that the infamous “Steele dossier”, another relic of “Russiagate”, was both reviewed and more or less dismissed or at least shelved by the FBI in the fall of 2016, before it was resurrected by both politicians and the media in the aftermath of that year’s elections.
In other words, we are basically told to take the Guardian at its word that, one, evidence exists, and two, that this evidence is sound. This is the very same Guardian that only in 2018 had “exclusively” revealed a “plot” by the Russians to spirit Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, a claim that the Guardian‘s own internal review panel had to walk back some while later3. At the very least, even if one is most accepting of the narrative of Russian perfidy and of Trump’s traitorous nature, at the very least should the Guardian not have released the actual document to the public or named a single expert opining on its authenticity? Would this not actually have been sound journalistic practice, you know, providing documentary evidence and on-the-record sources for one’s story? Especially since the two screenshots released thus far themselves raise more questions than provide answers?
And yet, there is more.
We are told explicitly in the story that the offending document, and let us assume for the moment that it is completely genuine and will, at some point, be made available to at least someone who is not anonymous, dates to January 14 or January 16, 2016.
Let me reiterate this. By January 14, 2016, the Russian government, at its highest levels, believed that Donald Trump is a likely candidate to win the Republican nomination, and thus the candidate behind whom Russian support must be thrown. This is just over two weeks prior to any primaries, or, more accurately, the Iowa caucuses, being held. To be completely fair, opinion polling from this period4 shows that Trump, on average, garners 35%-40% support nationwide among likely Republican primary voters. He is measured, however, against eleven other candidates, including names like establishment favourite Jeb Bush and up-and-coming starlet Marco Rubio. I would speculate that as of mid-January 2016 few, if any, mainstream political commentators in the US were outright predicting a Trump primary victory, rather anticipating some other candidacy to ultimately win out and chalking up Trump’s poll numbers to name recognition. Trump, in fact, lost Iowa to Ted Cruz, with Marco Rubio closely following.
Ah, but obviously those crafty Russians had known all along that Trump would win it all, and acted accordingly. Or, at least, so the Guardian would have us believe. Of course, if we actually had the full document to study, we might discover why the Russians believed this to be the case, or even whether they had evaluated any other candidates at the time. Alas and alack…
- Harding, L., Borger, J., Sabbagh, D., “Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House”, the Guardian, July 15, 2021, retrieved July 15, 2021[↩]
- I say, do stop calling me Shirley…[↩]
- Tobitt, C., “Guardian article detailing alleged Julian Assange ‘escape plot’ to Russia was misleading, internal panel rules”, PressGazette, December 31, 2019, retrieved July 16, 2021.[↩]
- Referenced in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries, retrieved July 16, 2021.[↩]