The cost of Trump’s weakness toward Russia; Obama & Russian meddling; Russian trolls fool Texans, and more

U.S. does little to combat Russian meddling in upcoming elections (AP)
U.S. intelligence chiefs point to evidence of Russian meddling in primaries that begin in two weeks, but no one is doing much to combat it.

As Washington gears up to tackle foreign influence, how effective can it be? (Philip Ewing, NPR)
Russia’s campaign of active measures against the United States in 2016 involved a broad and interlocking array of attacks, both overt and clandestine, ranging from social media agitation to active outreach by human operatives. Russian cyber-operatives also stole millions of email messages from scores of targets and then arranged for them to become public.

Was Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta involved in satanic “spirit cooking”? (Snopes)
An e-mail published by WikiLeaks mentioned “spirit cooking,” but claims that Hillary Clinton or John Podesta practice satanic rituals are grossly exaggerated.

Assigning blame for Russia’s election meddling (Adam Entous, New Yorker)
Donald Trump accused the Obama Administration of doing nothing about Russian interference in the 2016 election, but former officials say that Trump is the one who has ignored the threat. Current and former Trump advisers say Trump has himself, at times, undermined efforts to address the issue. Last year, some officials said they were reluctant to raise the Russia threat in meetings, worried that they’d upset the boss. That made it harder to have substantive, high-level discussions within the White House about possible responses.

How unwitting Americans encountered Russian operatives online (Scott Shane, Seattle Times)
A Baltimore pastor saw the inauthenticity of Russian efforts at activism in his city and called them on it. Other Americans were not so wary. Here’s a peek at how many in the U.S. engaged with the trolls without knowing.

Russian trolls and fake news are set to get much worse, warns former White House adviser (Anthony Cuthbertson, Newsweek)
Facebook, Google and Twitter are fundamentally flawed and increasingly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns in the build up to this year’s midterm elections, according to a former White House tech advisor.

How Russian trolls tried to fool Texans (Shane Scott, Austin American-Statesman)
They were politically active Americans scattered around the country, dedicating their spare time to the 2016 presidential campaign or various causes. And the seeming fellow activists who called them to rallies via Facebook, or joined in the free-for-all on Twitter, appeared unremarkable. Except that their English sometimes seemed a little odd.

Trump’s new “blame Obama” approach to Russian election meddling, explained (Jane Coaston, Vox)
It’s more about a desperate attempt at self-preservation than fact-finding.

Why the Mueller indictment doesn’t allege the Russians swung the election (Charlie Dunlap, Lawfare)
In announcing that 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were being charged for “seeking to interfere in the United States political system,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made it clear that the indictment contained “no allegation … that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.” Could a future indictment show that? Maybe, but I think that’s unlikely. There are many reasons for Hillary Clinton’s defeat. But it’s a mistake to give the Russians credit they don’t deserve for that result. Nonetheless, it’s also very dangerous to underestimate them or to assume that they won’t try again. They most likely will, and they’ll do so in an even more robust and sophisticated way. If the Russians used 1,000 trolls in 2016, they have the talent pool to vastly increase that number if they want. Moreover, with its “rich tradition of subversion,” the Russian intelligence apparatus is adept at studying previous operations and coming up with even more inventive strategies. After all, as Jack Goldsmith notes, “with a relatively paltry budget of $1.25 million per month, Russia achieves the most disruptive information operation in history that continues to roil American politics even if it did not swing the election.” Count on Russia to give it another try.The lesson is obvious: America still needs to do whatever it takes to preserve the sanctity of the electoral process against the Russians or any other foreigners “seeking to interfere in the United States political system.”