PRESS RELEASE

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Bloomberg Lets the VIPS Cat Out of the Bag

Aug. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)—Leonid Bershidsky wrote an opinion for Bloomberg today, titled, "Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Don’t Buy the Russia Story." He supports consideration of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) evidence against the Russia Hack allegation. Bershidsky points out that the VIPS were right about Saddam Hussein’s lack of weapons of mass destruction, while the rest of the intelligence community was wrong. He also points out that the VIPS says who they are, while the pro-Russiagate investigators are anonymous; that no intelligence agency actually examined the Democrats’ servers, but, instead, relied on CrowdStrike, which was paid by the Democrats, and linked to the anti-Russian Atlantic Council.

While carefully pointing out that none of the VIPS evidence is conclusive, Bershidsky writes that neither is the lack of evidence supporting Russiagate. He concludes by obliquely criticizing Russiagate, writing,

"Authoritarian regimes such as Putin’s routinely use external enemies to gloss over domestic divisions and distract the public from problems at home. In a functioning democracy, such tactics should not succeed."