Kremlin spokesman says that the Russian Ambassador met with people related to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. NASA/Joel Kowsky.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak also met with members and advisers to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Hill. Donald Trump has been crucified in the media for his campaigns alleged connections to Russia, but it seems as though Hillary Clinton's campaign had similar connections. Indeed, Peskov confirmed that the role of Ambassador Kislyak was to talk to both campaigns. Peskov claimed that that there was no attempt to interfere with the elections and that claims otherwise were attempts to demonize Russia. Peskov claimed that Putin never openly supported Trump but conceded that he wanted him to win over Clinton due to her perceived bias against Russia. 

My Comment:

Peskov states the obvious. Of course Sergey Kislyak had contact with members of the Trump and Clinton campaigns. That's literally his job!  The whole point of having diplomats is to conduct diplomacy and during a presidential campaign that means talking to people on both sides. It would have been shocking if Kislyak hadn't had connections with both campaigns, the fact that he did isn't newsworthy at all in a normal context.  

Indeed, things could have been a lot worse if Kislyak hadn't talked to either campaign. If not, than Russia would not have the private positions of the candidates. Hillary Clinton famously had different public and private positions and considering her public position was that Russia was responsible for the current state of the world. These contacts with the Russians might have prevented a war if she had won. Assuming that her public position was a lie that is... 

The whole Russian angle that the media has been playing for months is a total witchunt. Not only was there any fire to the smoke, there wasn't even all that much smoke. Trump's connections to Russia are essentially non-existent and the members of his campaign that did have connections were either minor (like Michael Flynn) or were because they were doing their jobs (like Jeff Sessions). 

And the issue has been focused on to the point where the media is leaving actual attacks rotting on the vine. It just came out that Michael Flynn's connections to Turkey were so strong that he might have had to register as a foreign agent. And he lied to the Trump administration about that fact. Flynn was fired but when you hear about him it is only his supposed connections to Russia that matter. The fact that he had strong links to Turkey, an Islamic country that is currently involved in a row with the Netherlands of all countries, is a non-issue to the media. I personally think that Turkey is a much bigger threat than Russia could ever be, but nobody in the media even seems concerned about the fact that Flynn was working with them. 

Trump also had contact with all kinds of other foreign government officials and nobody raised an eyebrow. And this wasn't just weak connections between his campaign and diplomats. Trump actually met with the Presidents of Mexico, Egypt and Israel in person. Though there will always be those that say that every president is a pawn of Israel, nobody is accusing Trump of being a pawn of Egypt or Mexico. Given how poor relations are with Mexico, it would be madness to do so. And yes, Clinton met with foreign officials as well! 

As for the allegation that Putin wanted Trump to win, that isn't that surprising. After all, Hillary Clinton did everything but openly call for war with Russia. And her plan in Syria, to establish a no-fly zone, might as well have been a call for war. Trump instead stated that he wanted to work with Putin if he could. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Putin would want the person who didn't want war with him to win. 

Still, even if Putin did want Trump to win, he hasn't gotten much out of it. If there really was a campaign for Trump to be subverted by the Russians, then it really hasn't worked out for the Russians at all. They still have sanctions against them, America's commitment to Ukraine hasn't changed and we still aren't working closely with the Russians in Syria. That's what Russia wanted but they sure haven't gotten it yet. Things are probably better than they would be with Clinton, but if Trump really is a Russian agent, than the Russians are not getting a good deal...