Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta[3][4]—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin.[5][6] The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
"Russiagate" redirects here. For other uses, see Russiagate (disambiguation).Date
Project Lakhta
- Destabilization of the United States
- Election of Donald Trump
The Internet Research Agency (IRA), based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and described as a troll farm, created thousands of social media accounts that purported to be Americans supporting radical political groups and planned or promoted events in support of Trump and against Clinton. They reached millions of social media users between 2013 and 2017. Fabricated articles and disinformation were spread from Russian government-controlled media, and promoted on social media. Additionally, computer hackers affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) infiltrated information systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta, and publicly released stolen files and emails through DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, and WikiLeaks during the election campaign. Several individuals connected to Russia contacted various Trump campaign associates, offering business opportunities to the Trump Organization and proffering damaging information on Clinton. Russian government officials have denied involvement in any of the hacks or leaks.
Russian interference activities triggered strong statements from U.S. intelligence agencies, a direct warning by then-U.S. president Barack Obama to Russian president Vladimir Putin, renewed economic sanctions against Russia, and closures of Russian diplomatic facilities and expulsion of their staff. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees conducted their own investigations into the matter. Donald Trump denied the interference had occurred.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Russian interference in July 2016, including a special focus on links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies and suspected coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Russian attempts to interfere in the election were first disclosed publicly by members of the United States Congress in September 2016, confirmed by US intelligence agencies in October 2016, and further detailed by the Director of National Intelligence office in January 2017. The dismissal of James Comey, the FBI director, by President Trump in May 2017, was partly because of Comey's investigation of the Russian interference.
The FBI's work was taken over in May 2017 by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who led a special counsel investigation until March 2019.[7] Mueller concluded that Russian interference was "sweeping and systematic" and "violated U.S. criminal law", and he indicted twenty-six Russian citizens and three Russian organizations. The investigation also led to indictments and convictions of Trump campaign officials and associated Americans, on unrelated charges. The Mueller report, made public in April 2019, examined numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that, though the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian activities and expected to benefit from them, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation submitted the first in their five-volume 1,313-page report in July 2019. The committee concluded that the January 2017 intelligence community assessment alleging Russian interference was "coherent and well-constructed". The first volume also concluded that the assessment was "proper", learning from analysts that there was "no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions". The final and fifth volume, which was the result of three years of investigations, was released in August 2020,[8] ending one of the United States "highest-profile congressional inquiries".[9][10] The Committee report found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in favor of Trump, which included assistance from some of Trump's own advisers.[9]
In November 2020, newly released passages from the Mueller special counsel investigation's report indicated: "Although WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the DNC in July and October 2016 and Stone—a close associate to Donald Trump—appeared to know in advance the materials were coming, investigators 'did not have sufficient evidence' to prove active participation in the hacks or knowledge that the electronic thefts were continuing."[11]
Impact on election result
As of October 2018, the question of whether Donald Trump won the 2016 election because of the Russian interference had not been given much focus. The question has been declared impossible to answer or has been ignored in favor of other factors that led to Trump's victory.[84][126] Joel Benenson, the Clinton campaign's pollster, has said that the answer to this question will probably never be known, while Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said "we cannot calculate the impact that foreign meddling and social media had on this election". Michael V. Hayden, a former director of the CIA and the NSA, has asserted that the Russian attacks were "the most successful covert influence operation in history", but that their impact is "not just unknown, it's unknowable".[84]
Statistician Nate Silver, writing in February 2018, described himself as "fairly agnostic" on the question, but noted that "thematically, the Russian interference tactics were consistent with the reasons Clinton lost".[317]
Clinton supporters have been more likely to blame her defeat on factors like campaign mistakes or Comey's reopening of the criminal investigation into Clinton's emails than to blame it on Russian interference. They have also drawn attention to the issue of whether Trump colluded with Russia in connection with the campaign.[84] In their book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes reported that immediately after the election, Robby Mook and John Podesta decided to assert that Russian hacking was the real reason for the defeat.[318]
Several high-level Republicans, including those who would have benefited from Russia's efforts, have asserted that Russian interference did not determine the election's outcome. President Trump has asserted that "the Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever",[319] and Vice President Pence has claimed that "it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election."[320] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added that "the intelligence community's assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election".[321][85] In fact, the official intelligence assessment of January 2017 did not evaluate whether Russian activities had any impact on the election's outcome,[322] and CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said Pompeo's remark was erroneous.[323]
House Speaker Paul Ryan claimed that it was "clear" that the Russian interference "didn't have a material effect on our elections".[126][85]
On the other hand, a number of former intelligence and law enforcement officials, at least one political scientist and one former U.S. president argue that Russian interference was decisive. In support of this argument, they point to the sophistication of the Russian propaganda on social media, the hacking of Democratic Party emails and the timing of their public release, the small shift in voter support needed to achieve victory in the Electoral College, and the relatively high number of undecided voters (who may have been more readily influenced).[85][126][84] James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, told Jane Mayer, "it stretches credulity to think the Russians didn't turn the election ... I think the Russians had more to do with making Clinton lose than Trump did".[84] Ex-FBI agent Clint Watts has written that "without the Russian influence ... I believe Trump would not have even been within striking distance of Clinton on Election Day".[85][324] Former president Jimmy Carter has publicly said he believes Trump would not have been elected without the Russian interference.[325] Carter has said, "Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf". When questioned, Carter agreed that Trump was an "illegitimate president".[326][327]
Three states where Trump won by very close margins—margins significantly less than the number of votes cast for third-party candidates in those states—gave him an Electoral College majority. Mayer writes that if only 12% of these third-party voters "were persuaded by Russian propaganda—based on hacked Clinton-campaign analytics—not to vote for Clinton", this would have been enough to win the election for Trump.[84]
Political scientist Kathleen Hall Jamieson, in a detailed forensic analysis concludes that Russian trolls and hackers persuaded enough Americans "to either vote a certain way or not vote at all" to affect the election results.[84][328]
Specifically, Jamieson argued that two factors that caused a drop in intention to vote for Clinton reported to pollsters can be traced to Russian work: The publicizing of excerpts of speeches by Clinton made to investment banks for high fees and disinformation on FBI head Comey's public denunciation of Clinton's actions as "extremely careless" (see above).[84]
A Columbia study published in 2022 saw changes on election betting markets around Russian holidays, when trolls would be less active.[329] An NYU study published in 2023 found Russian Twitter trolls, specifically, had no measurable impact.[77]
2022 developments
In November 2022, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted to Russian interference in U.S. elections.[395][396][397] CNN reported that "his statement appeared to be the first admission of a high-level Russian campaign to interfere in US elections from someone close to the Kremlin."[395]
In 2018, Prigozhin had been indicted along with 12 other Russian nationals and 3 Russian firms, as part of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference. In 2020, the Justice department had dismissed the indictments against Prigozhin's catering firm Concord, because the inability to punish the indicted would possibly lead to the exposure of law enforcement techniques in the process of trial. In July 2022 the State Department offered a $10 million reward for information on Prigozhin and the Internet Research Agency among other Russian interference mechanisms. Prigozhin's admission of election interference in November followed his admission of funding the Kremlin-linked far-right mercenary Wagner Group in September 2022.[396] He had also been placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list in 2021.[397]
U.S. officials were left unsurprised by the Russian oligarch's confession, which was phrased as a vague threat. "Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere... Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."[395] Prigozhin long having been sanctioned by the United States, the timing and vagueness of his admission could include elements of disinformation, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre describing it as one of many Russian narratives "aimed at undermining democracy".[395] She stated the oligarch's comments "do not tell us anything new or surprising."[396]
State Department spokesman Ned Price said that "His bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin... As you know, we have sanctioned this individual, Yevgeny Prigozhin, since 2018 for his interference with our election processes and institutions."[398][395]
On November 17, 2022, Republican political operative Jesse Benton was convicted by a federal jury for a 2016 scheme to funnel Russian money to the Donald Trump campaign. According to court documents, Benton caused a Russian foreign national to wire $100,000 to his consulting firm, of which $25,000 of the money from the Russian national was contributed to the Trump campaign.[399][400][401]
2023 developments
In December 2023, CNN reported that "a binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed [...] In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found. The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election. [...]" According to the report, in the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump intended to declassify and release publicly multiple documents related to the FBI's Russian investigation. Several copies of the binder, with varying levels of redactions ended up in the Justice Department and the National Archives, but an unredacted version went missing.[402][403][404]
Ongoing investigations
In December 2019, Switzerland extradited Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin to the United States, where it was reported that he would face questions about the Russian government's interference in the 2016 election, though the US Government has not publicly implicated him.[496]
Commentary and reactions
Public opinion
Polls conducted in early January 2017 showed that 55% of respondents believed Russia interfered in the election;[497] 51% believed Russia intervened through hacking.[498] As of February 2017 public-opinion polls showed a partisan split on the importance of Russia's involvement in the 2016 election.[499] At that time, however, the broader issue of the Trump administration's relationship with Russia didn't even register among the most important problems facing the U.S.[500] An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 53 percent wanted a Congressional inquiry into communications in 2016 between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.[501] Quinnipiac University found that 47 percent thought it was very important.[502] A March 2017 poll conducted by the Associated Press and NORC found about 62% of respondents say they are at least moderately concerned about the possibility that Trump or his campaign had inappropriate contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign.[503]
A January 2017 poll conducted by the Levada Center, Russia's largest independent polling organization, showed that only 12% of Russian respondents believed Russia "definitely" or "probably" interfered in the U.S. election.[504] A December 2017 survey conducted by the Levada Center found that 31% of Russian respondents thought their government tried to influence U.S. domestic affairs in a significant way.[505]
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late March and early April 2017 found that 68% of voters supported "an independent commission investigating the potential links between some of Donald Trump's campaign advisors and the Russian government".[506] An April 2017 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that respondents had little confidence in Congress's investigation into the Russian interference in the election. The poll found that approximately 73% supported a "nonpartisan, independent commission" to look into Russia's involvement in the election.[507] An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in April 2017 found that 56 percent of respondents thought Russia tried to influence the election.[508]
A May 2017 Monmouth University poll, conducted after the dismissal of James Comey, found that "nearly 6-in-10 Americans thought it was either very (40%) or somewhat (19%) likely that Comey was fired in order to slow down or stop the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links with the Trump campaign." Like other recent opinion polls, a majority, 73%, said that the FBI investigation should continue.[509]
A June 2017 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that respondents were more likely to believe James Comey over Trump when it came to their differing accounts behind the reasons for Comey's dismissal. The survey found that 45% of respondents were more likely to believe Comey than Trump. The poll also found that the number of respondents disapproving of Trump's decision to fire Comey- 46%- was higher than when the same question was asked in May of the same year. 53% of respondents said that they believed that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, however the number changes by party affiliation. 78% of Democrats said that they believed there was interference, versus 26% of Republicans who agreed.[510] An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll conducted in late June 2017 found that 54% of respondents believed that Trump either did "something illegal" or "something unethical, but not illegal" in his dealings with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The poll found that 73% of Republicans said Trump himself has done "nothing wrong" while 41% of Democrats believed that Trump did something that was illegal. In addition, 47% said that they thought Russia was a major threat to future U.S. elections, while 13% of respondents said that Russia posed no threat at all.[511]
A July 2017 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 63% of respondents said that it "was inappropriate for Trump's son, son-in-law and campaign manager to have met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign." The poll also found that six in ten overall who think that Russia tried to influence the election, with 72% saying that they thought that Trump benefited and that "67 percent thought that members of his campaign intentionally helped those efforts."[512]
Polls conducted in August 2017 found widespread disapproval and distrust of Trump's handling of the investigation. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted in early August found that only 31% of respondents approved of Trump's handling of the matter. The poll also noted that 60% of adults "thought that it was a serious matter that should be fully investigated." On party lines, the poll found that 15% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans approved of Trump's handling of the matter.[513] A Gallup poll from the same month found similar trends. The poll found that 25% of respondents said Trump acted illegally in dealings with the Russians. The poll found that 6% of Republicans and Republican-leaners thought Trump did something illegal in his dealings with the Russians.[514] A poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 58% of respondents expressed a negative view of Russia, while 25% had a favorable view of the country. The poll also found that 48% believed "there is clear evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help the Trump campaign."[515] The broader issue of the Trump administration's relationship with Russia, however, was not identified by more than one percent of respondents in Gallup tracking of 'Most Important Problem' at any point since February 2017. (As of July 2018, it was less than half a percent.)[500]
A July 2018 an online Ipsos poll found that 60% of American believed that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with 85% of democrats and 53% of Independents believing so compared to 46% of Republicans. 66% of democrats approved of the special counsel investigation compared to 32% of Republicans and 36% of Independents. In addition 75% of republicans believed the special counsel investigation was the result of anti-Trump bias. Compared to 32% of democrats and 36% of independents.[516]
A July 2018 Ipsos/Reuters poll found that 56% of Americans believed that Russia did interfere in support of Trump.[517]
A March 2019 poll released after reports of the findings of the Mueller report found that 48% of respondents said they believed "Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election"; 53% said "Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration"; and "Democrats [were] much more likely than Republicans to believe that Trump colluded with Russia and obstructed justice." In addition, 39% of respondents felt that Trump "should be impeached", while 49% said that he should not.[518]