Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Joint statement by Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The U.S. Intelligence Community first publicly affirmed its confidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections in an October 2016 joint letter. The agencies included the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), representing seventeen intelligence agencies and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On October 7, the DNI and DHS stated the intelligence community was confident Russia had directed Democratic National Committee (DNC) cyber-attacks and the release of its private documents. Russia stated it was not involved.

In a December 9, 2016 briefing to legislators, U.S. intelligence agencies and senior officials stated with high confidence Russia's goal was to sway the election for Donald Trump. They stated Russia arranged for WikiLeaks to acquire hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. A senior U.S. official said this was the consensus of multiple intelligence agencies, based on pre-election evidence. U.S. officials concluded this partially based on an assessment 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 believed Russia was behind the attacks, and was uncertain as to motive. On December 15, 2016, government representatives revealed to NBC News that post-election information led intelligence officials to "a high level of confidence" that Vladimir Putin dictated the operation. CBS News, ABC News, CNN, and Reuters independently confirmed this assessment. Russia disputed reports of Putin's involvement as "nonsense"; foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said it was "silly".

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. On December 12, Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell expressed confidence in U.S. intelligence, and supported a bipartisan investigation. McConnell announced that the Senate intelligence panel would conduct an investigation into Russia's involvement.

Background

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

Internet Research Agency

See also: Trolls from Olgino and Web brigades

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 the "Russia Today" TV network RT. 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 RT. After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called RT "a "propaganda bullhorn" for Moscow", RT insisted the State Department give an "official response". Stengel wrote that RT engaged in a "disinformation campaign".

Russian trolls' support for Trump

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

In December 2015, Adrian Chen said that Russian trolls he'd been monitoring "have turned into conservatives, like fake conservatives... all tweeting about Donald Trump and stuff", tentatively speculating "maybe it's some really opaque strategy of like, electing Donald Trump to undermine the U.S. or something, like false flag kind of thing." 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

October 2016 joint statement

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 July 2016, consensus grew within the CIA that Russia hacked the D.N.C.

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 U.S. election was intended to steer the election toward Trump, rather than simply to undermine or in other ways disrupt the political process."

December 2016 CIA report to legislators

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.]". This was based on evidence obtained before the election. A senior U.S. official said this was the consensus of multiple intelligence agencies. A U.S. official said the FBI believed Russia was behind the attacks, but was uncertain as to motive.

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.

Vladimir Putin involvement

NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, CNN, and Reuters each independently spoke to separate intelligence officials who said Vladimir Putin personally controlled the covert operation.

NBC News reported two senior federal employees said intelligence after the election led intelligence officials to believe with "a high level of confidence" that Vladimir Putin himself dictated the covert operations plot to sway the election. The two officials told NBC News Putin's motives started as a feud against Hillary Clinton, and grew more broadly into a desire to sew distrust of the U.S. around the globe. The intelligence individuals told NBC News the covert operation would have had to have been approved by top officials in the Russian government, and said they believed this due to concluding Putin controlled absolute directives over government in Russia. The assessment that Putin was personally involved in overseeing the covert action was echoed by comments from government intelligence officials to CBS News, who said the operation would not have occurred without the approval of the Russian President.

ABC News separately reported similar accounts from both U.S. and foreign intelligence officials, and independently wrote that Putin was directly part of planning Russian interference in the election. According to ABC News, the operation began with low-level Russian military officials, in an effort to penetrate computer systems of politicians belonging to both Democratic and Republican parties. After the Russian hackers were able to gain access to the Democratic National Committee, Putin at that point in time injected himself personally into the operation. Two senior officials told CNN the scale of the covert operation was large enough that it required support from the Russian government's top authority.

Reuters reported it spoke with three U.S. officials with awareness of the intelligence investigation who said Putin involved himself in the covert operation and morphed its initial goals of simply sewing discord in U.S. democratic values, to instead focus on assisting Trump win the presidency. Reuters said under Putin's direction, the goals of the covert operation evolved from criticizing American democracy, to attacking Hillary Clinton, and finally in fall 2016 shifted to directly attempting to help election Trump president — as Putin felt Trump would act more favorably to Russia with regards to U.S. financial sanctions. An intelligence official explained to Reuters that due to Putin's prior experience as an operative for the KGB, he maintained closer control over all intelligence operations in his country.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes appeared on MSNBC on December 15, 2016 and agreed with this assessment, saying: "I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it. When you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government." White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest noted in a December 15 press conference that the U.S. Intelligence Community reached similar conclusions, and he quoted from the October 2016 joint-letter by the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security, saying: "only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities".

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 RNC 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. chair 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 and Senate Minority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer planned a bipartisan investigation.

McCain, Graham, Schumer, Reed Joint Statement on Reports That Russia Interfered with the 2016 Election

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.

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" for 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. McConnell announced that the Senate intelligence panel would conduct an investigation into Russia's involvement.

In a December 14, 2016 interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Senator Lindsey Graham said Russians hacked into his Senate campaign email. Graham said the FBI contacted his campaign in August 2016 to notify them of the breach in security which occurred in June to his campaign vendor. On December 15, 2016, Senator Graham stated in order for Trump's nominee for United States Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to earn his confirmation vote, Tillerson would need to acknowledge his belief Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Representative 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.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman Representative 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." On December 14, Nunes requested a formal briefing "to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us," but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence refused, citing the review ordered by President Obama: "Once the review is complete in the coming weeks, the Intelligence Community stands ready to brief Congress—and will make those findings available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods."

Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, said through a spokeswoman that "foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable". Ryan said an investigation should be conducted by Nunes, and stated: "any intervention by Russia is especially problematic because, under President Putin, Russia has been an aggressor that consistently undermines American interests."

Obama Administration

President Obama ordered the United States Intelligence Community to investigate Russian attempts to influence the election and report back by January 2017.

President Obama and Vladimir Putin had a discussion about computer security issues in September 2016, which took place over the course of an hour and a half. During the discussion, which took place as a side segment during the then-ongoing G20 summit in China, Obama made his views known on cyber security matters between the U.S. and Russia. Obama used the phrase "candid, blunt, businesslike", to describe the discussion with Putin.

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," and that this was based on multiple sources. 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 U.S. 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.

On December 12, 2016, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was critical of Trump's rejection of the idea that Russia used cyber-attacks to influence the election. Earnest noted:

The president-elect has said one thing on Twitter, the 17 intelligence agencies of the United States came forward two months ago to put forward their unanimous assessment about Russia's malicious cyber activity. I'll let you and the American people judge who is in a better position to defend their argument.

On December 15, 2016, at a subsequent White House press conference, Earnest said Trump and the public were aware prior to the 2016 election of Russian interference efforts: "Mr. Trump obviously knew that Russia was engaged in malicious cyber activity that was helping him, [and] hurting [Democrat Hillary] Clinton. These are all facts that are not in dispute."

United States Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on December 15, 2016, about President Obama's decision to approve the October 2016 joint statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Kerry stated: "The president made the decision based on the input that was carefully, carefully vetted by the intelligence community. ... that he did have an obligation to go out to the country and give a warning. And he did so."

President Obama was interviewed about the Russian covert operation on December 15, 2016 in an interview with National Public Radio journalist Steve Inskeep for the next day's Morning Edition program. Obama said the U.S. government would respond in overt and covert methods: "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections ... we need to take action. And we will — at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be." The president said the government would be better able to speak to motive behind the Russian operation after the intelligence report he ordered was completed. Obama emphasized: "the basic point that everyone during the election perceived accurately — that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign."

Commentary and reactions

Donald Trump

Trump's transition team dismissed the CIA conclusions

In September 2016, during the first presidential debate, Donald Trump said he did not think that "anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC." During the second debate, Trump said, "Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia." After the election, Trump rejected the CIA analysis. Trump's transition team issued a statement mocking the CIA. The official statement from the Trump transition team read: "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Reacting to the Washington Post's reporting, Trump said, "I think it's ridiculous. I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it." Trump also said he thinks that the story was being pushed out by Democrats because of the results of the election.

Republican National Committee

The RNC has said there was no 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 RNC servers had not been hacked.

WikiLeaks

In July 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said there was "no proof" the emails leaked from the Democratic National Committee were traceable back to Russia. In November 2016, Assange denied Russia was the source of John Podesta's hacked emails published by Wikileaks. The Hill reported that on December 15, 2016, Assange stated leaks of Democratic materials provided to journalists at The Hill and Gawker could have been from Russia, and re-asserted that the documents WikiLeaks itself obtained were not from those individuals. Assange said the Guccifer 2.0 leaks to the press could have been from Russian sources. Assange refused to elaborate on reports that had previously appeared in The Daily Mail that his close associate Craig Murray traveled to the U.S. to obtain the leaked materials in question on his behalf. Assange stated: "Craig Murray is not authorized to talk on behalf of WikiLeaks."

Russian government

File:Sergey Lavrov, official photo 06.jpg

Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Lavrov said Russia did not interfere in the U.S. 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." Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, rejected reports of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections.

ABC News noted on reports Putin was directly involved in the covert operation, his representative referred to these accounts as "funny nonsense". Peskov said it was "amusing rubbish".

Reuters reported Sergei Lavrov appeared on government television station Rossiya-24 to speak about assertions Putin directed the election interference. Lavrov was shocked by the first reporting on the development by NBC News. He stated: "I think this is just silly, and the futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious."

Electoral College

On December 10, ten electors, headed by Christine Pelosi, wrote an open letter to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper demanding an intelligence briefing on investigations into foreign intervention in the presidential election. Fifty-eight additional electors subsequently added their names to the letter, bringing the total to 68 electors from 17 different states. The Clinton campaign supported the call for a classified briefing for electors, with John Podesta saying: "The bipartisan electors' letter raises very grave issues involving our national security. Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed."

Intelligence community

Current members

The CIA assessment, and Trump's dismissal of it, created an immediate and unprecedented rupture between the president-elect and the intelligence community. On December 11, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials responded to the first time to Trump's denunciation of its findings in a written statement that read: "It's concerning that intelligence on Russian actions related to the U.S. election is being dismissed out of hand as false or politically partisan. The inclination to ignore such intelligence and impugn the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials is contrary to all that is sacred to national-security professionals who work day and night to protect this country."

On the same day, 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. Other serving officers stated that retaliation by Trump was a near certainty.

Former members

Former CIA director Michael Morell said: "A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life. To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11." In a Washington Post op-ed, former NSA director and CIA director Michael V. Hayden wrote that Trump's attack on the Intelligence Community's findings diminished the chances that the incoming administration would use intelligence "to create the basis, and set the boundaries, for rational policy choices."

Former CIA spokesman George E. Little condemned Trump for dismissing the CIA assessment, saying that the president-elect's "unprecedented" response was "nothing short of shameful" and "disrupts one of the bedrocks of our strength: the application of foreign intelligence, often collected at great peril by the men and women of the CIA, to the development of policies that keep us safe." Another former CIA spokesman, Bill Harlow, said that the dispute between Trump and the CIA was a "really ugly situation" and that it was "unprecedented to have a president so frontally assault" the intelligence community.

Independent presidential candidate and former CIA intelligence officer Evan McMullin said Republican leadership did not respond adequately during the 2016 election to their knowledge at the time about Russia's efforts to meddle in the process. McMullin said Republican politicians were aware the publicly revealed information about Russia's interference was likely simply the tip of the iceberg relative to the actual threat. McMullin said that with his experience having worked as an intelligence officer he was distressed by the CIA revelations. He said Republicans had not acted on the issue sufficiently during the election because they placed importance of the Republican party over U.S. national concerns.

Experts and scholars

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

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 "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." McFaul 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."

Media

Glenn Greenwald wrote in a piece for The Intercept: "An important part of this story, quite clearly, is inter-agency feuding between ... the CIA and the FBI." He called it "a shoddy and unreliable practice to conduct critical debates through conflicting anonymous leaks."

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the 2016 presidential election "tainted" and stated that Trump had been "installed with the help of and remarkably deferential to a hostile foreign power." Krugman criticized FBI Director Comey's handling of the matter, writing that "grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement" had affected the election outcome.

Writing in The Nation, James Corden argued that evidence challenging "the veracity of the CIA's finding" is "often carefully cropped out of the mainstream media's portrayal of the controversy."

Fox News performed a poll in December 2016 which found the greater proportion of individuals surveyed believed Russian interference did not sway the outcome of the presidential election. 59 percent thought Russian interference did not have a perceptible impact, and 32 percent of those surveyed said Russia's actions assisted Trump. 67 percent maintained confidence in the performance of the CIA.

On December 15, 2016, in response to Trump's repeated denials of Russian interference, the term "useful idiot" was used by the Editorial Board of The New York Times to describe Donald Trump: "There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily foreign power."

See also

• 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
• American influence in the Honduran general election, 2009
• Cozy Bear
• Cyberwarfare by Russia
• Office of Personnel Management data breach
• Cyberwarfare in China
• Operation Aurora
• DC Leaks
• Fancy Bear

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)