Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

A consensus of U.S. intelligence sources have concluded that a "swell of evidence" indicates that the Russian government intervened in the U.S. Presidential election in 2016, "with the primary aim of helping make Donald Trump president." Trump has claimed not to believe the reports, though he has not given any reasons to doubt the evidence presented. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), representing the United States Intelligence Community, in a joint letter with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in October 2016, said Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. On October 7, the DNI and DHS stated the intelligence community was confident Russia had directed Democratic National Committee (DNC) [[Democratic National Committee cyber attacks|cyber-attacks]] and the release of its private documents. The report stated these acts were conducted in an attempt to influence the results of the U.S. election. Russia has denied being involved in the hacks.

Senior U.S. officials and U.S. intelligence agencies stated with high confidence, Russia facilitated WikiLeaks obtaining hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta to influence the election. A senior U.S. official said the conclusions were the consensus of multiple intelligence agencies. This conclusion was based on significant circumstantial evidence before the election. U.S. officials stated the conclusion was based on the belief Russia hacked the Republican National Committee (RNC), and chose not to release the content. RNC officials stated they were not hacked, and a U.S. official stated efforts to hack RNC servers had failed. A U.S. official said the FBI was uncertain as to motive, believing Russia was behind the attacks.

On December 9, President Barack Obama ordered a report on foreign interventions in elections going back to 2008. Republican Senators including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain called for a bipartisan investigation. President-elect Trump rejected the intelligence report, and attacked the U.S. intelligence services in an official statement released by his transition team. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said Russia was not involved in the leaks, but declined to offer an alternative provenance of his sources, or rebut any of the evidence in the report. On December 12, Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell said he was confident in U.S. intelligence, and placed his support behind a bipartisan investigation.

Background

Internet Research Agency

See also: Trolls from Olgino and Web brigades

A Russian propaganda "troll farm" was traced back to Saint Petersburg.

Beginning in fall 2014, The New Yorker writer Adrian Chen performed a six-month investigation into Russian propaganda online by a group called the Internet Research Agency. The New Yorker reported it was widely documented in Russian media that Evgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Vladimir Putin, was behind the operation which hired hundreds of individuals to work in Saint Petersburg.

The group was regarded as a "troll farm", a term used to refer to propaganda efforts controlling many accounts online with the aim of artificially providing a semblance of a grassroots organization. Chen reported that Internet trolling was used by the Russian government as a tactic largely after observing the social media organization of the 2011 protests against Putin. Chen interviewed Russian reporters and activists who said the end goal of propaganda by the Russian government was to sow discord and chaos online.

Counter-Disinformation Team scrapped pre-election

The International Business Times reported the United States Department of State planned to use a unit formed with the intention of combating disinformation from the Russian government, and that it was disbanded in September 2015 after department heads missed the scope of propaganda before the 2016 U.S. election. The unit had been in development for 8 months prior to being scrapped.

Titled Counter-Disinformation Team, it would have been a reboot of the Active Measures Working Group set up by the Reagan Administration. The Counter-Disinformation Team was set up under the Bureau of International Information Programs. Work began on the Counter-Disinformation Team in 2014, with the intention to combat propaganda from Russian sources such as Russia Today. A beta website was ready and staff were hired by the U.S. State Department for the unit prior to its cancellation. U.S. Intelligence officials explained to former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer John R. Schindler that the Obama Administration decided to cancel the unit as they were afraid of antagonizing Russia. A State Department representative told the International Business Times after being contacted regarding the closure of the unit, that the U.S. was disturbed by propaganda from Russia, and the strongest defense was sincere communication.

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel was point person for the unit before it was canceled. Stengel previously wrote about disinformation by Russia Today. After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Russia Today: a "propaganda bullhorn" for Vladimir Putin, Russia Today insisted the State Department give an "official response". Stengel wrote Russia Today engaged in a "disinformation campaign".

Russian trolls support for Trump

In December 2015 Adrian Chen noticed pro-Russia accounts suddenly became supportive of Trump.

Adrian Chen observed a pattern in December 2015 where pro-Russian accounts became supportive of 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. Andrew Weisburd and Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow and senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, Clint Watts, wrote for The Daily Beast in August 2016 that Russian propaganda fabricated articles were popularized by social media. Weisburd and Watts documented how disinformation spread from Russia Today and Sputnik News, "the two biggest Russian state-controlled media organizations publishing in English", to pro-Russian accounts on Twitter.

Citing research by Adrian Chen, Weisburd and Watts compared Russian tactics during the 2016 U.S. election to Soviet Union Cold War strategies. They referenced the 1992 United States Information Agency report to the United States Congress, which warned about Russian propaganda called active measures. Weisburd and Watts concluded social media made active measures easier. Institute of International Relations Prague senior fellow and scholar on Russian intelligence, Mark Galeotti, agreed the Kremlin operations were a form of active measures. The Guardian reported in November 2016 the most strident Internet promoters of Trump were paid Russian propagandists. The paper estimated there were several thousand trolls involved.

Weisburd and Watts collaborated with colleague J. M. Berger and published a follow-up to their Daily Beast article in online magazine War on the Rocks, titled: "Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy". They researched 7,000 pro-Trump social media accounts over a two-and-a-half year period. Their research detailed Internet trolling techniques to denigrate critics of Russian activities in Syria, and to proliferate falsehoods about Clinton's health. Watts said the propaganda targeted the alt-right movement, the right wing, and fascist groups. BuzzFeed News reported Kremlin-financed trolls were open about spreading Russian disinformation.

On November 24, 2016, The Washington Post reported the Foreign Policy Research Institute stated Russian propaganda exacerbated criticism of Clinton and support for Trump. The strategy involved social media, paid Internet trolls, botnets, and websites in order to denigrate Clinton. Watts stated Russia's goal was to damage trust in the U.S. government. Conclusions by Watts and colleagues Andrew Weisburd and J.M. Berger were confirmed by research from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and by the RAND Corporation.

Computer security company FireEye concluded Russia used social media as a weapon to influence the U.S. election. FireEye Chairman David DeWalt said the 2016 operation was a new development in cyberwarfare by Russia. FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia stated Russian cyberwarfare changed after fall 2014, from covert to overt tactics with decreased operational security.

U.S. intelligence analysis

Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security and CIA

Seals of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

The U.S. Intelligence Community tasked resources debating why Putin chose summer 2016 to escalate active measures influencing U.S. politics. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said after the 2011–13 Russian protests, Putin's confidence in his viability as a politician was damaged, and Putin responded with the propaganda operation. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Patrick Skinner explained the goal was to spread uncertainty.

In a joint statement on October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement on Russian influence on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The statement read: "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process." The statement represented the conclusions of 17 intelligence organizations within the United States government and the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper

By December 2, "multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation into Russia's hacking" told CNN that the U.S. Intelligence Community was "increasingly confident that Russian meddling in the US election was intended to steer the election toward Trump, rather than simply to undermine or in other ways disrupt the political process."

On December 9, the CIA told U.S. legislators the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to assist Donald Trump in winning the presidency. Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and additional sources such as John Podesta, campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. These intelligence organizations additionally concluded Russia hacked the Republican National Committee (RNC) as well as the DNC—and chose not to leak information obtained from the RNC. A senior administration official told The New York Times: "We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents [from the R.N.C.]".

The CIA said the foreign intelligence agents were Russian operatives previously known to the U.S. Writing in The New York Times on December 9, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane described the ambiguity surrounding the information then publicly available: "It is also far from clear that Russia's original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials—and former officials in Mrs. Clinton's campaign—believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut public confidence in the integrity of the vote." The CIA told U.S. Senators it was "quite clear" that Russia's intentions were to help Trump.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

In June 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) notified the Illinois Republican Party in June that some of its email accounts may have been hacked.

On October 31, 2016, The New York Times stated that the FBI had been examining possible connections between Trump and Russia "for much of the summer," and was unable to find "any conclusive or direct link." Moreover, "even the hacking into Democratic emails, FBI and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump."

An unnamed official disputed assertions the R.N.C. servers were hacked, and stated that "attempts to penetrate the Republican committee's systems ... were not successful," citing "an FBI investigation into the matter."

In a December 11, 2016 interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News R.N.C. director Reince Priebus stated: "We contacted the FBI months ago when the [alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee] issue came about. They reviewed all of our systems. We have hacking-detection systems in place, and the conclusion was then, as it was again two days ago when we went back to the FBI to ask them about this, that the RNC was not hacked."

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing, the FBI broke with the CIA on the reasons for the hacks, with the official responsible for the briefing stating that "there’s no question that [the Russians’] efforts went one way, but it’s not clear that they have a specific goal or mix of related goals".

Government response

U.S. Senate

U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Republican Senator John McCain planned to work with U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Republican Senator Richard Burr on investigating Russian involvement in the election.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he would conduct a sweeping investigation into the Russian propaganda operation.

Members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee traveled to Ukraine and Poland in 2016 and learned about Russian operations to influence their affairs. U.S. Senator Angus King told the Portland Press Herald that tactics used by Russia during the 2016 U.S. election were analogous to those used against other countries.

On November 30, 2016, King joined a letter in which seven members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee asked President Obama to publicize more information from the intelligence community on Russia's role in the U.S. election. In the letter to President Obama, the senators called upon the president to allow the declassification and release of "additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election." In an interview with CNN, Senator King warned against ignoring the problem, saying: "I don't consider this a partisan issue. We can't just let it go and say that's history because they will keep doing it."

Representatives in the U.S. Congress took action to monitor the National security of the United States by advancing legislation to monitor propaganda. On November 30, 2016, legislators approved a measure within the National Defense Authorization Act to ask the U.S. State Department act against propaganda with an inter-agency panel. The legislation authorized funding of $160 million over a two-year-period. The initiative was developed through a bipartisan bill, the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, written by U.S. Senators Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Chris Murphy. Portman urged more U.S. government action to counter propaganda. Murphy said after the election it was apparent the U.S. needed additional tactics to fight Russian propaganda. U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden said frustration over covert Russian propaganda was bipartisan.

Republican U.S. Senators stated they planned to hold hearings and investigate Russian influence on the 2016 U.S. elections. By doing so they went against the preference of incoming Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who downplayed any potential Russian meddling in the election. U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr discussed plans for collaboration on investigations of Russian cyberwarfare during the election. U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker planned a 2017 investigation. Senator Lindsey Graham indicated he would conduct a sweeping investigation in the 115th Congress.

Republican Senator James Lankford agreed with John McCain and Lindsey Graham that there should be a bipartisan investigation into the Russian influence on the election.

On December 11, 2016, top-ranking bipartisan members of the U.S. Senate issued a joint statement together on December 11, 2016 responding to the intelligence assessments Russia influenced the election. The two Republican signers were Senators Graham and McCain, both members of the Armed Services Committee; the two Democratic signers were incoming Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. The statement by the four said Russian interference in the election "should alarm every American" and that: "This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country. We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner".

In a response to Trump's disregard for the U.S. intelligence assessments on Russia, Republican Senator John McCain said: "The facts are there." Senator McCain called for a special select committee of the U.S. Senate to investigate Russian meddling in the election. Republican Senator and Senate Intelligence Committee member James Lankford agreed looking into Russian influence on the elections should be cooperative between parties, and tweeted: "Cybersecurity investigation of Russian interference can't be partisan." Republican Senator Susan Collins said a bipartisan investigation should be forward looking towards improving proactive cyber defence.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, the outgoing leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said that the FBI had covered up information about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in a bid to swing the election in Trump's favor. Reid stated that FBI Director James Comey "has let the country down for partisan purposes," called Comey the "new J. Edgar Hoover," and called for Comey's resignation. Reid asserted the FBI organized a "coverup" the Russian hack to tip the election in Trump's favor.

On December 12, Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell disagreed with Trump and stated "I have the highest confidence in the intelligence community, and especially the Central Intelligence Agency." McConnell added that investigation of Russia's actions "should not be a partisan issue" and said that it "defies belief" that some members of the Republican Party would not want such an investigation.

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff, Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, commented on Putin's aims, and said U.S. intelligence agencies were concerned with Russian propaganda. Speaking about disinformation that appeared in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland, Schiff said there was an increase of the same behavior in the U.S. Schiff concluded Russian propaganda operations would continue against the U.S. after the election. He put forth a recommendation for a combined House and Senate investigation similar to the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, said through a spokeswoman that "foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable" — and did not call for a congressional investigation into the Russian role in the election.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman Congressman Devin Nunes stated that "There is no clear evidence — even now" that Russia acted to help Trump. Nunes stated "There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that’s it."

Obama Administration

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said Russian interference in the election was "disturbing".

On December 9, 2016, President Obama ordered the United States Intelligence Community to conduct an investigation into Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election and provide a report before he leaves office on January 20, 2017. Lisa Monaco, U.S. Homeland Security Advisor and chief counterterrorism advisor to the president, announced the study, and said the intrusion of a foreign nation into a U.S. national election was an unprecedented event that would necessitate further investigation by subsequent administrations in the executive branch. The intelligence analysis will take into account data from the last three presidential elections in the U.S. Evidence showed malicious cyberwarfare during the 2008 and 2016 U.S. elections.

A senior administration official told CNN that "We already know very clearly that Russia was behind this malicious activity in an attempt to interfere in our election. The high confidence of the intelligence community was already born out of multiple sources of intelligence." The official said that the Intelligence Community review ordered by President Obama was intended to be a forward-looking lessons learned report, and not a retrospective report on the 2016 election: "This report is not going to look at the result of 2016 and examine if voters were swayed. This is solely about lessons learned about foreign actors interfering, how they did it, what their techniques and procedures were and how the US government can mitigate future attempts."

Various administration officials said that "a range of possible responses" were under consideration, including sanctions or a covert cyber response against Russia.

Trump transition team

Trump's transition team dismissed the CIA conclusions, remarking: "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

Intelligence Community

On December 11, 2016, The Guardian reported that members of the intelligence community feared reprisals from Donald Trump once he takes office, in response to the reports that have been issued. Serving officers pointed to Trump's attempts to identify civil servants in the Department of Energy "who have attended climate change conferences" as a parallel example. Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer said "There is not just smoke here. There is a blazing 10-alarm fire, the sirens are wailing, the Russians provided the lighter fluid, and Trump is standing half-burnt and holding a match". Other serving officers stated that retaliation by Trump was a near certainty.

Commentary and reactions

Experts and scholars

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, writing in the Washington Post, called the known facts about Russian interference in the election was "disturbing" and called for a full investigation to determine the facts that are still uncertain. McFaul said that the investigation announced by President Obama was "a good start ... but it is not enough," writing: "First, a serious investigation will take longer than one month; second, the authors of such a report must be bipartisan; third, the scope of such an inquiry must include other forms of interference beyond hacking; and fourth, the actions (and maybe non-actions) of the executive branch during the 2016 campaign must be part of the study." McFaula called for a "bipartisan investigation, staffed in part by academics and experts, so that we know better what happened and therefore can make important policy changes before the 2020 elections."

Historian Robert S. McElvaine wrote that there should be "supreme outrage" over the CIA's conclusion of Russian interference and that "the stealing of an election through actions by a hostile foreign power is both the greatest scandal in American history and precisely the sort of evil that the Framers of the United States Constitution sought to block through the Electoral College." McElvaine referred to Federalist No. 68 in calling upon the Electoral College to adopt a "compromise Government of National Unity."

Russian government

Vladimir Putin representative Dmitry Peskov denied Russian interference in the election.

The Russian government said it had no involvement. In a statement given to Reuters in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov representative for Russian president Vladimir Putin said: "I completely rule out a possibility that the (Russian) government or the government bodies have been involved in this."

Trump's transition team dismissed the CIA conclusions

Julian Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Russia was not involved, and said that there was no proof they were behind the attack.

Republican National Committee

The RNC has denied any intrusion into its servers, while acknowledging that the email accounts of individual Republicans (including Colin Powell) were breached. Over 200 emails from Colin Powell were posted on the website DC Leaks.

Chief of staff-designate for Trump and outgoing RNC Chairman Reince Priebus appeared on Meet the Press on December 11, 2016, and discounted the CIA conclusions. When asked by Chuck Todd whether "Russia was trying to muddy up and get involved in the election in 2016," Priebus responded "There's been no conclusive or specific report to say otherwise"—a statement rated "False" by the fact-checking website Politifact.com, who noted it "flies in the face of plain words from two of the highest ranking intelligence and security officials." Priebus relayed the FBI investigated and found R.N.C. servers had not been hacked.

Others

Glenn Greenwald criticized the The Washington Post and The New York Times reports on Russian involvement in the presidential election. Greenwald stated that these reports relied on anonymous sources within the CIA and did not provide any evidence or proof.

A fake news website claimed that Edward Snowden had said voting machines in Wisconsin were originally rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton but that Russian hackers then re-rigged them to help Donald Trump; in fact, Snowden made no such claim.

See also

• Active measures
• DC Leaks
• 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
• Cozy Bear
• Cyberwarfare by Russia
• American influence in the Honduran general election, 2009

Further reading

• Andrew Weisburd, Clint Watts and JM Berger (November 6, 2016), "Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy", War on the Rocks, retrieved December 6, 2016
• Strohm, Chris (December 1, 2016), "Russia Weaponized Social Media in U.S. Election, FireEye Says", Bloomberg News, retrieved December 1, 2016
• Demirjian, Karoun (December 8, 2016), "Republicans ready to launch wide-ranging probe of Russia, despite Trump's stance", Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, retrieved December 10, 2016
• Porter, Tom (December 1, 2016), "US House of representatives backs proposal to counter global Russian subversion", International Business Times UK edition, retrieved December 1, 2016

External links

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence (October 7, 2016), Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security, archived from the original on December 10, 2016, retrieved December 11, 2016
• John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, Jack Reed (December 11, 2016), McCain, Graham, Schumer, Reed Joint Statement on Reports That Russia Interfered with the 2016 Election, United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, retrieved December 11, 2016{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)