The weakness of a lawfare response to Russian attack on election

Andrew McCarthy:
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A government lawyer is a hammer who sees every problem as the nail of a lawsuit. As we saw in the Clinton and Obama years (and will tend to see in transnational-progressive governments that prize legal processes over the pursuit of national interests by the most effective means available), administrations dominated by government lawyers find even belligerent provocations by foreign power to be fit for judicial resolution.

To the contrary, we use counterintelligence rather than criminal investigation to thwart foreign adversaries because prosecution is a woefully inadequate response. The point of counterintelligence is to gather information so we can stop our enemies, through meaningful retaliation and discouragement. Generally, that means diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and, in extreme cases, military means. It could mean deploying our own cyber capabilities. The idea is not to invade every rogue nation. It is to respond to provocations in a manner that hurts our rivals — conveying that the prohibitive cost we will exact makes attacking us against their interests.

That cannot be accomplished by a mere indictment on which no one will be tried.
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Nevertheless, we are talking now about the foreign adversary. The Justice Department’s comments Friday elucidated that information warfare is being orchestrated by Russia — i.e., the regime — not a random bunch of Russians. As we’ve stressed over the years in connection with many terrorism indictments, if a foreign power is engaged in warfare against the United States, an indictment is not a serious response — especially an indictment on which no one is ever going to be prosecuted. Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein suggested on Friday that, with formal charges now filed, the Justice Department will turn to the next step in the legal process: seeking the defendants’ extradition. Once the Russians stop laughing, I imagine they’ll send us a curt note in Cyrillic — or maybe they’ll just flip us the bird, the universal language.
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Remember, we are talking here about a case in which Russia’s campaign, despite its energy and funding, was a drop in the ocean of American campaign spending and messaging. It barely registered. It had no impact. And, again, the indictment that has been filed is a gesture that will result in no prosecutions. Is it really worth opening this can of worms?

I know what you’re going to tell me: It’s not the same thing because we don’t do what they do: When we meddle, it is not through the kind of fraudulent activities that Mueller alleges the Russians engaged in — including bank fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft. But don’t kid yourself: What we are green-lighting here is criminal prosecution as a response to “interference” by alleged agents of a foreign power in another country’s elections and public debates. Once that is the rule of the road, we are not going to be able to control decision-making in other countries about what kind of conduct constitutes actionable “interference.”
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The Russian foreign minister has already waved off the indictments as just noise.  I blame the liberals for the noise and for the need Mueller's team to "do something."  History should show that they have done more to create the chaos and divisiveness than the piddling Russian attack did.  It can also be assumed that they will never take responsibility for this mess or any other they have made.

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