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Impeachable Offenses?

~ Examining the Case for Removal of the 45th President of the United States

Impeachable Offenses?

Tag Archives: bots

Trump Balks at “Chinese Propaganda”

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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Abraham Denmark, bots, china, China Daily, chinese, Collusion, Conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the united states, des moines, donald, Impeachment, interference, iowa, president, register, Russian, the des moines register, trump

President Trump charged China with “placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers,” in response to a 4-page advertorial purchased by a Chinese State-run paper. The advertorial was fashioned as a series of articles entitled “China Watch” (PDFs found here). Trump’s response is particularly striking in light of his relative silence in response to the established interference of Russian robots. Abraham Denmark, “a former senior Pentagon and U.S. intelligence official [and current] director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program,” told the New Yorker that this was an old practice and much less extreme than recent Russian actions: ” . . . there’s a distinction between influence and interference. What China did was the former, what Russia did was the latter.”

Denmark brings up an interesting point for an impeachment discussion. President Trump is being investigated for conspiracy to defraud the United States for his possible collaboration with Russians with the intention of interfering with the Presidential election. Some scholars believe that could constitute fraud. Though Trump could not be charged with colluding with the Chinese, it is an interesting question whether the actions of the Chinese government could similarly constitute fraud. That seems unlikely. In addition to what Denmark has already suggested (that there is a distinction between influence and interference) we are also missing the element of deceit (as described by Professor Bowman in the link posted immediately above). The Chinese were very candid in their attempts to influence voters — there was a banner at the top of each page of their advert which read “section sponsored by China Daily.” This is far from the equivalent of the massive campaign of Russians who adopted American personalities online. Therefore there was no probably no fraud involved; making Trump’s reaction contrast even more starkly his silence in the face of Russian interference. That being said, that’s an answer to a question nobody was asking. More soon.

397c0ded-a693-4cc2-bf77-10f6043cadb3-IMG_5088.jpgThe Des Moines Register

 

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The Russians Influenced the Election — So What?

25 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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bots, Collusion, Conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the united states, Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, donald trump, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, overt act, president, robots, russia, russian hackers, trolls, trump

The New Yorker writes today that Russian bots and trolls likely did influence the 2016 election; or rather Kathleen Hall Jamieson, author of  “Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know,” asserted as much during her interview with the paper. She writes about how, through an online campaign, Russian hackers influenced voters to garner support for Trump. These trolls adopted pseudo-American-identities to better influence their audience, and, according to Jamieson, succeeding in swaying the vote.

Though this is an alarming proposition, it is worth noting that it is not one that needs to be established for a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States. A showing of success is not necessary for a charge of collusion — all that is necessary is that there is a conspiracy with the aim of defrauding the U.S. and some overt act taken in pursuit of that goal. Whitfield v. United States, 543 U.S. 209, 214, 125 S. Ct. 687, 691, 160 L. Ed. 2d 611 (2005). As such, it would be sufficient if Trump were to have conspired with Russian hackers, the Russian hackers assumed American avatars, and then the whole plan went belly up. That being said, the idea that the presidency was handed to Trump by internet trolls could add fervor to impeachment efforts.

trump.jpg

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Russian Bots Preferred Trump

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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2016 election, bots, Collusion, committee, impeach, interference, judiciary, russia, Senate, trump, tweeter, tweets

The Senate Judiciary Commitee’s probe of social media platforms uncovered data concerning the number of retweets Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each received from Russian robots between September 1st and November 15th. While Trump received 470,000 retweets from the Russian bots, Clinton only received 50,000.  C-NET reports that Twitter has around 450,000 suspicious logins (possibly from bots) a day, and as such the number of retweets the candidates received is relatively insignificant. However, it does establish the Russian bots had a preference for retweeting Trump. Additionally, this preference cannot be said to be a mere reflection of the candidate’s rate of tweeting, as their daily average was more or less on par with each other.

This information falls far short of establishing collusion. Even if we could take the data to mean that the Russian government supported Trump, it does not show that Trump solicited said support. However, it does help to further establish Russian interference with the 2016 election. To look at the Committee’s complete report click here.

download (1).jpegJosh Haner/New York Times/Redux

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Frank O. Bowman, III


Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law
University of Missouri School of Law

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