Are “the Russians” a Scapegoat in the French Election?

EERIE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ALLEGED ROLE IN FRENCH AND U.S. ELECTIONS

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 6, 2017) — Although not trending on Twitter on Saturday, users of the social media platform have been speculating as to whether or not an apparent intrusion into the servers of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron will cause more citizens to support his rival, Marine Le Pen, on Sunday.

Throughout the day, the hashtag “@MacronLeaks” has been populated with comments containing links to Reddit and other sources offering their analysis of the emails.

On Friday, the Macron campaign affirmed that it was the object of a significant “hack” of its campaign servers.

“Russia” has been named as the perpetrator by many mainstream media outlets, which have compared the activity to “the cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s Democratic campaign,” in a reference to the reported findings of the U.S. intelligence community relative to thousands of emails said to have been purloined to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

In the weeks leading up to Macron’s formal admission to the breach on Friday, The New York Times reported that his campaign had become a “target” of “what appear to be the same Russian operatives responsible for hacks of Democratic campaign officials.”

On Saturday, The (UK) Telegraph reported that former Hillary Clinton staffers attributed the breach to “Russia,” with whom the research director of the cyber-security firm Flashpoint agreed.

A French law prohibiting political activity or media reportage of political campaigns within 48 hours of the election went into effect at midnight on Friday local time, also affecting Macron and Le Pen’s ability to issue any statements on the matter.

The “hacked” documentation was reportedly posted at the open-forum site 4chan after appearing at a website named pastebin. [Warning: Comments left in response to the allegedly hacked information contained obscenities; not suitable for children.]

IP numbers originating in France were reported to have been blocked from accessing 4chan to enforce the campaign moratorium law, media reports said.

In some instances, U.S. media reported that the divulged emails were “nonincriminating.”  In a statement released on Friday prior to the moratorium, the Macron campaign claimed that inauthentic emails were released in combination with genuine ones.

Earlier on Saturday, the open-government organization Wikileaks claimed to be authenticating the emails and to have identified none that it deemed fraudulent.

Reuters wrote that “U.S. far-right activists helped amplify a leak of hacked emails belonging to leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign, some researchers said on Saturday, with automated bots and the Twitter account of WikiLeaks also propelling a leak that came two days before France’s presidential vote.”

Prior to the first stage of presidential voting on April 23, Macron was accused of “improprieties” allegedly including his concealing of offshore bank accounts, a claim he vigorously denied.  At that time, media were predicting a win by Macron during the final round on May 7 by a sizable margin.

On April 25, NBC News reported that a Japanese cyber-security company, Trend Micro, which studied the reported “phishing” scams perpetrated against the Macron campaign could not confirm that “the hackers were linked to Russia.” However, on the same day, USA Today reported that “Researchers with the Japanese anti-virus firm Trend Micro say the campaign of French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron has been targeted by Russia-linked hackers, adding more details to previous suggestions that the centrist politician was being singled out for electronic eavesdropping by the Kremlin.”

Several users of the social media site Reddit linked Macron to financial support from the United States and secret support for incorporating the teaching of Islam in French public schools.

Macron has been described as a “centrist,” while Le Pen is termed “far right” by the mainstream media.  On Wednesday, former White House occupant Barack Obama released a video endorsing Macron.

U.S. presidents do not customarily endorse candidates for foreign offices.

In his endorsement statement, Obama said that Macron “has stood up for liberal values, he put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world. And he is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears.”

Earlier in the French campaign, it was reported that 42,000 citizens of that country wanted Obama to seek to become their next president despite his lack of French citizenship.  On March 1, Fox News reported that “Former President Obama is a U.S. citizen.”

As The Post & Email has reported extensively, Obama’s citizenship is not known based on a life narrative that has changed over time and has included reports of his alleged birth in Kenya or Indonesia as well as Hawaii.

In March 2012, and image said to be representative of his “long-form” birth certificate from the state of Hawaii was declared a “computer-generated forgery” by a former detective who ultimately spent more than five years analyzing and collecting data relating to its origins. At the same time, Mike Zullo stated that the investigation found that Obama’s alleged Selective Service registration form was also fraudulent.

Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen.”