"Does anybody seriously think Vladimir Putin will ship a dozen of his intelligence service's top digital spies to America to face trial?
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a huge splash Friday by announcing that special counsel Robert Mueller has issued an indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence operatives for hacking the computer systems of two top Democratic campaign committees.
What Rosenstein didn’t say in making that announcement suggests the indictment was made public to manipulate voters, rather than as a public information service provided to help American citizens understand what their government is doing.
And that’s why Rosenstein’s Friday news conference was meaningless, except as attempted manipulation of public perception of the special counsel investigation of allegations aides to Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian interests.
But the fact that the U.S. has no extradition treaty with Russia only begins to explain why Rosenstein’s news conference was suspect. Demands that Putin extradite 12 employees of his government’s intelligence service beg credulity.
This is the same Putin who granted temporary asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden five years ago after the world learned he was a cyber-traitor on an unprecedented scale .
Just last year, Putin extended Snowden’s asylum to 2020.
If anything, Putin may well be more likely to have his thugs round up a dozen American citizens presently in Russia and jail them on trumped-up espionage charges in retaliation for the Mueller indictment...
Read on.
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