Reuters is reporting today that the U.S. Government has ordered 35 Russian suspected spies to leave America and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 presidential election. First of all, the people who leaked the emails have repeatedly stated that Russia had nothing to do with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)–those who released the emails have stated that they came from a whistleblower within the DNC who objected to the primary election being rigged to give Hillary Clinton the nomination.

The article at Reuters is a classic example of spin. They go on to say that the Russians were responsible, yet ignore the content of the emails released, which is actually what turned voters off. There is no mention of the fact that no one has ever denied the content of the emails despite the fact that it revealed horrible things about how the DNC operated.  One can’t help but wonder if the sanctions and expulsion of diplomats would be happening if Hillary Clinton had won the election. Would President Obama care?

John Hinderaker posted a more balanced article dealing with the Russian sanctions at Power Line today.

The Power Line article asks an obvious question:

The Obama administration insists that Russia’s government was behind the DNC intrusion, but acknowledges that those who actually carried out the operation were not Russian government employees. Rather, the Fancy Bear group is said to be “affiliated with the GRU.” The administration says it will publish a report before Obama leaves office that will detail the evidence against Vladimir Putin’s administration. Until then, there is no way to evaluate the reliability of the claim that Russia’s government was involved.

But let’s assume it was. This is the question I haven’t seen the press corps ask; needless to say, the administration hasn’t answered it. Why didn’t Obama impose sanctions on Russia in October 2014, when, by the administration’s own account, the Russian government hacked into both the White House’s and the State Department’s computers? This was a much more serious infraction than invading Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s emails. Yet it drew zero response from Obama, who seemed more interested in covering up an embarrassing episode than in punishing the Russians.

Given that history, it is hard to disagree with Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said:

We think that such steps by a U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect.

I knew President Obama would not go quietly, but I did not expect him to complicate America’s relationships around the world. Russia under Putin will never be trustworthy, but at least there was a possibility of a working relationship under President Trump. President Obama has done what he could to make any cooperation between our two countries very difficult.