American HustleJuly/August 2019 77operate on U.S. soil and under
counterintelligence surveillance, as
opposed to when acting anonymously from afar via computers.GET OVER IT
The American public needs to understand not only what the Russians
did but also what they did not do. Russia did not chose the respective
party’s presidential candidates, and it did not invent the Electoral Col-
lege. Clinton ran the only possible Democratic campaign that could
have lost, and Trump ran the only possible Republican campaign that
could have won. Whatever the marginal impact o Russia’s actions, it
was made possible only by crucial actions and inactions in which Russia
was never involved. Above all, Russia did not design the preposterous
patchwork and vulnerabilities o the United States’ election machinery.
Putin, moreover, did not plant a sleeper agent in a Harvard dormi-
tory in 2002 and then have him study psychology and computer sci-
ence, develop social networking algorithms, drop out in 2004,
insinuate himsel into Silicon Valley, and set up a private company
that attains phenomenal prot by monetizing Americans’ love o
oversharing and constant need to feel outraged. Nor did Putin force
the very media outlets that this Russian sleeper agent’s company was
helping put out o business to praise that agent to the skies. Nor did
he compel investors to pour money into this latent Russian weapon,
thereby expanding its reach and power. No: Facebook fell into Pu-
tin’s lap in 2016, and it is still there. In Mueller’s report, U.S.-based
technology rms do garner some attention: one section is titled “Op-
erations Through Facebook”; another, “Operations Through Twit-
ter.” But there is nothing about what authorities should do to mitigate
the vulnerabilities that social media create.
It remains unclear whether the public will ever learn more about the
crucial
counterintelligence investigation into Russian intrusion. F
personnel worked with Mueller’s oce and obtained information from
it, “not all o which is contained in this Volume,” the report notes. But
the report is silent on what became o that information. I the counter-
intelligence investigation is ongoing and involves sensitive sources and
methods, then Barr may well be right to refuse to comply with Congress’
demand for the full report and for Mueller’s underlying materials—a
refusal that caused the House to threaten to hold him in contempt.
In the end, the Mueller report provides no answer to the puzzle o
what motivates Trump’s obsequiousness toward Russia. In discussing11_Kotkin_pp2.indd 77 5/20/19 3:35 PM