RUSSIAN ELECTION HACK
SEE THE PLAN HERE
Our vulnerability to online manipulation doesn’t stop at our border. America’s foreign adversaries have been persistent in their sabotage efforts — proving that our political division is not just a domestic challenge but a national security issue as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, didn’t cause our national division but, as any good KGB agent would, he masterfully leveraged it and, ultimately, deepened it.
Election interference is part of Putin’s asymmetric-warfare strategy (asymmetric-warfare is essentially a conflict between two countries that have significantly uneven military capabilities, like the United States versus Russia). These hybrid warfare tactics are designed to significantly raise the risk and cost of retaliation and to keep potential adversaries guessing. This creates a kind of gray zone between war and peace, where things don’t necessarily escalate into overt military conflict, but where adversaries know the threat exists nonetheless.
It’s incredibly important we understand exactly how Russia interfered in our 2016 and 2020 elections so we can make absolutely certain we never let this happen again.
Regrettably, our quest to find the truth about Russia’s 2016 interference was railroaded by partisan politics. Even though Russia’s transgressions are undeniable, a disturbingly large part of America still thinks the whole thing was a “hoax” because Donald Trump and his parrots still insist that it was.
Somehow — most likely because his campaign was included in the Special Counsel investigation — the fact that Russia interfered in the 2016 election got all tangled up with whether or not Russia interfered to help Donald Trump win.
As a result, in what we can only guess is an attempt to defend his legitimacy, Donald Trump never challenged Putin and, in the end, enabled him to do even more damage (like the damage Putin caused by initiating the largest, most comprehensive cyber hack in American history).
To be clear: Acknowledging that Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election in no way undermines Donald Trump’s victory. He won, fair and square. Russia screwing with our elections and what candidate they were or were not trying to help are completely separate issues. Personally, we could not care less who Russia’s interference helped or didn’t help. That is entirely beside the point. The only point is that Russia attacked us and should have been held accountable for it, immediately. It was critical in that moment for the president of the United States to acknowledge the very serious threat of a foreign power interfering in American democracy.
That didn’t happen, to say the least. At a news conference during the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki, Finland — with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin standing right beside one another — an American reporter asked Donald Trump if he believed his own intelligence agencies in regard to the 2016 election interference or did he believe Putin. Donald Trump replied, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Say whaaaaaatttt?????
This is bad. Even though the U.S. Congress passed Russian sanctions in response to the election interference and the Mueller investigation ensnared quite a few Russians, these actions at best make a one-day story on limited international media outlets. Standing on a podium in another country with the head Russian, siding with him over our own U.S. intelligence agencies? That’s a multi-day headline and a huge long-term blow to our national security apparatus.
The mere appearance that Russia got away with this puts the United States at significant risk. After all, what kind of message did that spectacle send to China, Iran, North Korea, and other potential cyber attackers? This matters because, believe it, they are all just watching and waiting for their chance.
Look, we're not naïve. We understand the United States also does this kind of stuff. That’s just the nature of the ongoing cyberconflict we are now confronted with. But that certainly doesn’t mean we should just sit back and let other nation states attack us with no consequence. Whose side are you on, Donald?
All of this only empowered Putin, which was evident in the 2020 election. Two months before the big day, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee hearing that “the intelligence community consensus is that Russia continues to try to influence our elections.” Wray continued, “We certainly have seen very active efforts by the Russians to influence our elections in 2020.” He went on to describe Russia’s behavior as a “steady drumbeat of misinformation.”
On August 7, 2020, Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) William Evanina warned that: “Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters’ preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people’s confidence in our democratic process.” Specifically, he said that the NCSC “assesses that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’”
He continued, “This is consistent with Moscow’s public criticism of Biden when he was Vice President for his role in the Obama Administration’s policies on Ukraine and its support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia. For example, pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Derkach is spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party. Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”
A month later, the U.S. Treasury Department actually sanctioned Andrii Derkach for running an “influence campaign” against Joe Biden. In their announcement, they labeled Derkach as “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has maintained “close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services.”
The announcement also revealed that Derkach “has directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. Today’s designation of Derkach is focused on exposing Russian malign influence campaigns and protecting our upcoming elections from foreign interference. This action is a clear signal to Moscow and its proxies that this activity will not be tolerated.”
Then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was quoted in the statement confirming that “Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to counter these Russian disinformation campaigns and uphold the integrity of our election system.” Incidentally, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s cracker jack personal attorney, met at least three times with Derkach in the months leading to the sanctions, and amplified Derkach’s propaganda on his own podcast and other media outlets.
Now that the dust has settled, we now know — thanks to the United States intelligence community — that Russia did interfere in 2020 but on a much smaller scale. Among other things, Russia tried to undermine Joe Biden’s candidacy by spreading unsubstantiated allegations about him and his son. < Note: Iran also tried to influence the election but, contrary to the Trump Administration’s claims, China did not. >
Nevertheless, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines made clear that “foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country. These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
Actually, Putin probably didn’t feel he needed to be as involved this time, because enough Americans were essentially doing his job for him by spreading disinformation and being hateful all on their own. Plus, the Russians were too busy pulling off a massive cyber hack that started in the Spring of 2020.
Make no mistake though, thanks to the lack of blowback they received for the 2016 and 2020 attacks, you can bet your bottom dollar the Russians will be back, gunning for our future elections. As former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said after the 2016 election, “Russia perceives its past efforts as successful” and views future elections “as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”
So, let’s review what we know so there will be zero doubt that online influence operations are not a hoax: There is zero doubt that Vladimir Putin significantly intervened in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, threatening our democratic institutions and one of our most sacred constitutional rights. There is zero doubt that Vladimir Putin purposefully and meticulously perpetrated these malicious acts with the intention of harming our democracy and polarizing the American public by sowing seeds of discord among us.