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“ Russia’s intervention in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections
was not a one-off act of Russian interference.
“U.S. Special counsel Robert Mueller on Feb. 16 {2019} indicted Russian
individuals and entities for interference in the U.S. presidential election.
“This is not a one-off act of Russian interference . . . {Russian
interference in the electoral process of other nations dates back centuries.}
- - -
“At the beginning of the 17th century, Poland was a great power
that not only meddled in Russian politics but even sent an army to Moscow in 1610 and put
a Polish prince on the throne. However, Russia grew in power through the next hundred years.
By the early 18th century, Russia was routinely meddling in internal Polish electoral politics.
At this time, the Polish king was elected by the noblemen. Peter the Great and his
successors bribed nobles to vote against attempts of the king and central government to
strengthen the central government and national army. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“From its very birth in 1917, the Soviet regime sought to turn its
communist revolution into a global communist revolution. But it was really the only victory
in World War II that gave the Soviet Union superpower status and the ability to intervene in
other countries on a global scale.” (Ref. 1)
Russian interference in the elections of other countries is not
a phenomenon unique to the United States or to the 2016 election of Donald Trump. One
glaring example of similar interference occurred in England in 1982. The Russian spy agency,
“the KGB was working hard to try to ensure that {Margaret} Thatcher lost the 1983 general
election. In the eyes of the Kremlin, Thatcher was ‘the Iron Lady’ – a nickname intended as
an insult by the Soviet army newspaper that coined it, but one in which she reveled – and
the KGB had been organizing ‘active measures’ to undermine her ever since she came to power
in 1979, including the placing of negative articles with sympathetic left-wing journalists.
The KGB still had contacts on the left, and Moscow clung to the illusion that it might be
able to influence the election in favor of the Labour Party, whose leader, after all, was
still listed in the KGB files as a ‘confidential contact.’ In an intriguing harbinger
of modern times, Moscow was prepared to use dirty tricks and hidden interference to swing
a democratic election in favor of its chosen candidate. [Emphasis mine]
”. . . KGB efforts to swing the election had no impact whatsoever, and
on June 9 Margaret Thatcher won by a landslide . . . “ (Ref. 2)
That Russia interfered in America’s 2016 elections is incontrovertible.
Such interference was not discouraged by the Trump campaign, just the opposite. During the
2016 presidential election campaign, the Trump campaign hoped “to benefit politically from
Russian hacking . . .
- - -
“The Mueller report provided overwhelming evidence of how the
Russians carried out their effort to interfere with the election. The details in the report
buttress the earlier findings by the U.S. intelligence community of Russian meddling with
the intent of helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. . . .
“. . . The number of contacts between associates of the Trump
campaign and Russians connected with their government are anything but normal in presidential
campaigns. The contacts were ‘numerous,’ according to the report . . . “ (
Ref. 3)
“On Russian interference . . . {Robert Mueller, in his testimony
before Congress,} made clear that his investigation did turn up evidence of a conspiracy
{between Russia and the Trump campaign}. Indeed, the conclusions drawn about the ties
between the Trump campaign and Russian officials are incredibly damning.
“There was a ‘systematic effort by Russia to influence’ the 2016
presidential election — and on behalf of Donald Trump, because they believed they would
benefit from Trump winning the election.
“Trump campaign officials ‘welcomed’ that influence, because they
believed it would help them win the election. Trump publicly called on the Russians to
hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and praised Wikileaks for releasing information that had
been stolen by Russia. Afterward, the Trump campaign built a ‘messaging strategy’ around
these stolen documents.
“{Paul} Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, briefed
Konstantin Kilimnik, an official with ties to Russian intelligence, about the state of
the campaign [Emphasis mine] — sharing internal polling data and campaign strategy
for winning key battleground states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Manafort
also offered to give a similar private briefing to a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir
Putin.
“Mueller confirmed that “several individuals associated with the
Trump campaign were also trying to make money during the campaign and transition” based on
foreign connections, and that included the president. He also found that five Trump
campaign officials lied about their contacts with Russian officials.
- - -
“What emerges from Mueller’s testimony . . . {is} a tale of a
candidate and campaign intent on welcoming the assistance of a foreign government — and
attempting to profit from it. . . .” (Ref. 4)
“Russia’s suspected interference in last year’s U.S. presidential
election may have come as a surprise to some. But to many European nations, such an intrusion
is nothing new.
“For years, Russia has used a grab bag of illicit tactics, including
the hacking of emails and mobile phones, the dissemination of fake news and character assassination,
to try to undermine the political process in other countries.
- - -
“Moscow has recently stepped up this type of activity, targeting
political processes in France, Germany and the Netherlands, among other nations, according
to experts who testified on the first day of a series of Senate hearings {in 2017} on Russia’s
propaganda and intelligence campaign aimed at undermining the 2016 vote.
"Some of the nations Russia has stung are Western foes, others former
Soviet republics, or states that fall within Moscow’s sphere of influence.
- - -
“Ukraine was hit during its 2004 and 2014 election campaigns . . .
Malware was used to infect the servers at Ukraine’s central election commission . . .
“Hungary, the Baltic States, and the former Soviet republic of
Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, have also been the target of political subversion
by the Kremlin, which has often sought to bolster the political ambitions of far-right and
Euro-skeptic parties or foster instability or social unrest . . .
“ ‘It is really in central and Eastern Europe that they’ve really
been able to practice and hone these techniques and you’re now starting to see that they’re
comfortable enough with them to start to export them to other parts of the world . . .'
“. . . {The} Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman . . . warned
Russia was ‘actively involved’ in efforts to interfere in the upcoming French and German
elections.
“. . . ‘A very overt effort, as well as covert in Germany and
France, already been tried in Montenegro and the Netherlands.’
- - -
“Experts said Russia’s aim was to support France’s far-right
candidate Marine Le Pen, whose National Front party received an $11.7-million loan from
a Russian bank in 2014, according to several international news reports. Russia has also
reportedly lent money to Greece’s Golden Dawn, Italy’s Northern League, Hungary’s Jobbik
and the Freedom Party of Austria — all far-right nationalist parties.
- - -
“The Kremlin’s political favorites in other European nations —
typically populists — have been given favorable news coverage by Russian news outlets,
such as the state-owned satellite network RT and the website Sputnik, while their opponents
are denigrated, often in fake news stories and by Internet trolls . . .
- - -
Germany is also believed to have fallen prey to Russian attempts
to undermine the country’s presidential election, scheduled for September. The country’s
domestic intelligence agency has accused Russia of cyberattacks and cyberspying . . .
“. . . Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service said material
hacked from the German parliament and published by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks
came from the same Russian group that hacked the U.S. Democratic National
Committee . . .” (Ref. 5)
There is no reason to believe that Russia will cease interfering
in the elections of foreign countries. Vladimir Putin comes from the old school of political
and militant interference that was a feature of the Stalin type of expansionist communist
aggrandizement. Such policy was famous for its ruthlessness and lack of respect for any
nation’s independence. Robert Mueller testified that Russian interference remains today
and he expects it to continue into the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
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References:
- A Brief History of Russian Interference in Foreign Elections, Eric Lohr,
Global Security Review , 20 February 2019.
- THE SPY AND THE TRAITOR, Ben Macintyre, Broadway Books ,
Page 176, 2018.
- Mueller’s report paints a damning portrait of Trump’s presidency, Dan Balz,
The Washington Post, 18 April 2019.
- Optics Aside, Mueller’s testimony was damning, Michael A. Cohen,
Boston Sunday Globe, Page k2, 28 July 2019.
- Russia’s meddling in other nations’ elections is nothing new.
Just ask the Europeans,
Ann M. Simmons, Los Angeles Times,
30 March 2017.
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