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What Was Ron Paul's Role In Russian Election Meddling?
In October of 2007, the race for the White House was heating up, and a debate among Republican candidates had just taken place. Shortly after, 162 million unsolicited emails were sent out promoting one candidate: Ron Paul. The subject lines included such lauding pronouncements as “Ron Paul wins GOP Debate!” and “Ron Paul Stops Iraq War!” The messages were made to look as if they had been sent from real people, but they were actually sent from a botnet based in Ukraine. With troubling links now emerging between Ukrainian hackers and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the web-driven “Ron Paul Revolution” deserves a second look.
The spam in the Ron Paul case caught people’s attention, and when security researchers discovered the real source several weeks later, it made headlines. Some pointed the finger at the Paul campaign, accusing them of “dirty tricks.” Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s spokesman and grandson-in-law, brushed off the incident as either the work of an overzealous supporter or a political rival looking to discredit the campaign. At the time, these were the only three thinkable scenarios. But after the 2016 election, the rise of Trump, and revelations of foreign meddling, another possible perpetrator comes to mind: Russia. It was unthinkable in 2008, but at least plausible in retrospect.
Ron Paul has been called the “intellectual godfather” of the Tea Party, and the storied populist surge of his 2008 campaign began — or at least accelerated — that movement, and the rightward drift of the Republican party in general. That drift culminated with Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. Since November, it has become clear that Russian-backed actors were actively meddling with the election, including using an “army of trolls” to help Trump. Now, a Ukrainian hacker is being implicated in the cyberattacks. He is in custody, and the case is being called “the first known instance of a living witness emerging from the arid mass of technical detail.”
But could it be that 2016 wasn’t the first time Russia used the internet to meddle in a U.S. election? Did those operations start the very moment the old media gatekeepers lost control over what U.S. voters saw and heard?
<snip>
Paul’s 2008 presidential run also coincided with Russia’s ramped-up public web presence. Just two weeks after Paul announced his presidential bid, Russia Today (RT) launched its YouTube channel. (Paul was the first U.S. presidential candidate they interviewed, incidentally.)
<snip>
But it also turns out that despite the seeming contradiction, Paul is a consistent and vocal defender of Russia. In recent years, he has called into question whether Kremlin-backed separatists shot down flight MH17, justified Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and called the chemical attacks ordered by Syria’s Russia-supported President Bashar al-Assad a false-flag operation. In 2008, he also opposed a House resolution condemning Moscow for the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent who died of radiation poisoning in London in 2006. “The real purpose,” Paul said, “is to attack the Russian government by suggesting that Russia is involved in the murder. There is little evidence of this beyond the feverish accusations of interested parties.” (The Ron Paul Institute did not respond to requests for comment on this piece.)
https://timeline.com/ron-paul-russia-hacking-e248f87f38f2
The spam in the Ron Paul case caught people’s attention, and when security researchers discovered the real source several weeks later, it made headlines. Some pointed the finger at the Paul campaign, accusing them of “dirty tricks.” Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s spokesman and grandson-in-law, brushed off the incident as either the work of an overzealous supporter or a political rival looking to discredit the campaign. At the time, these were the only three thinkable scenarios. But after the 2016 election, the rise of Trump, and revelations of foreign meddling, another possible perpetrator comes to mind: Russia. It was unthinkable in 2008, but at least plausible in retrospect.
Ron Paul has been called the “intellectual godfather” of the Tea Party, and the storied populist surge of his 2008 campaign began — or at least accelerated — that movement, and the rightward drift of the Republican party in general. That drift culminated with Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. Since November, it has become clear that Russian-backed actors were actively meddling with the election, including using an “army of trolls” to help Trump. Now, a Ukrainian hacker is being implicated in the cyberattacks. He is in custody, and the case is being called “the first known instance of a living witness emerging from the arid mass of technical detail.”
But could it be that 2016 wasn’t the first time Russia used the internet to meddle in a U.S. election? Did those operations start the very moment the old media gatekeepers lost control over what U.S. voters saw and heard?
<snip>
Paul’s 2008 presidential run also coincided with Russia’s ramped-up public web presence. Just two weeks after Paul announced his presidential bid, Russia Today (RT) launched its YouTube channel. (Paul was the first U.S. presidential candidate they interviewed, incidentally.)
<snip>
But it also turns out that despite the seeming contradiction, Paul is a consistent and vocal defender of Russia. In recent years, he has called into question whether Kremlin-backed separatists shot down flight MH17, justified Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and called the chemical attacks ordered by Syria’s Russia-supported President Bashar al-Assad a false-flag operation. In 2008, he also opposed a House resolution condemning Moscow for the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent who died of radiation poisoning in London in 2006. “The real purpose,” Paul said, “is to attack the Russian government by suggesting that Russia is involved in the murder. There is little evidence of this beyond the feverish accusations of interested parties.” (The Ron Paul Institute did not respond to requests for comment on this piece.)
https://timeline.com/ron-paul-russia-hacking-e248f87f38f2
Long article but worth reading. Very interesting stuff. Ron Paul could be the missing link in all of this.
6 replies
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Even though either one would not surprise me, Rand and his dad have far more ties to Putin and Russia than Rohrabacher does. It would make a hell of a lot more sense. But all 3 are traitor scumbags. 
I would be willing to bet good odds that Mueller has a subpoena for both of them in the works! 