“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publically announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials – hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government – began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November. 

“As set forth in detail in the Mueller Report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian Government and the Trump campaign. (Although) the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Trump campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts…”

“President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

“The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.”

 

The first two paragraphs are from the Mueller Report. The second two are from the September 27th issue of the Washington Post. The Mueller Report established that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump. The Washington Post article confirms that Trump told the Russians that he did not care and practically green lighted similar activity in the 2020 election.

Jim Porter

Danville