CIA investigation may have implications for
upcoming French and German polls, even raising doubts over integrity of Brexit
vote
By Simon Tisdall
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Donald Trump speaks at a
Thank You USA rally on Friday.
Photograph: Mike
Segar/Reuters
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The CIA’s conclusion that Russia covertly
intervened to swing last month’s presidential election in favour of Donald
Trump but its actions did not place the overall credibility of the result in
doubt will be hard to swallow for some.
The classified CIA investigation, which has
not been published, may also have implications for the integrity of Britain’s
Brexit referendum last June, and how upcoming elections in France and Germany
could be vulnerable to Russian manipulation. The latest revelations are not entirely
new. What is fresh is the bald assertion that Moscow was working for Trump.
Democrats have been agitating for months for
more decisive action by the White House following earlier reports of
Russian-inspired hacking designed to undermine their candidate, Hillary
Clinton. Some of the thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National
Committee and members of Clinton’s campaign staff that were leaked, reportedly
by Russian proxies, were used to reinforce a key Trump campaign narrative, that
of “Lying Hillary”.
Pre-empting the CIA’s disclosures, Barack
Obama finally acceded on Friday to public pressure to investigate the full
extent of Russian meddling, ordering a review reaching back to previous
elections. “We have crossed a new threshold,” said Lisa Monaco, a top security
adviser.
The suggestion that Russia’s interventions
had limited or no impact on the outcome of one of the most divisive US
elections in modern history will sit badly with ordinary voters, especially in
closely-fought states such as Michigan, where a legal battle has been in
progress over a possible recount.
Earlier in the year, the US government
officially accused Russia of directing efforts to disrupt the election process,
interfere with electronic voting machinery, spread disinformation, and
generally discredit and confuse the democratic system.
In the event, Clinton lost the election in
the electoral college, but won the popular vote. According to the Cook
Political Report, a non-partisan organisation, Clinton obtained at least
65,527,625 votes, over 2.6 million more than Trump.
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Confidence that Russian interference did not
have a decisive impact will also be strained by Trump’s reaction to the CIA
revelations. He derided the CIA as an organisation that had been wrong in the
past about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Trump is already at
odds with the CIA director, John Brennan, who recently stated publicly that the
president-elect’s pledge to tear up last year’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran
would be “disastrous”.
Washington insiders say Trump is not even
bothering to read the daily national intelligence briefs prepared for the
president, which are traditionally shared with his incoming successor. That
omission suggests Trump does not want to know some inconvenient truths about
the election – and is heading for a tempestuous relationship with the US
intelligence community.
Trump’s previous, favourable statements about
Russia’s authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, and suggestions that the
Trump administration, once in office, will attempt to reach an accommodation
with Moscow, have intensified critics’ concerns about possible collusion
between the two self-styled strongmen.
Putin’s precondition for any meaningful reset
in bilateral relations would be the lifting of US sanctions on Russia and de
facto recognition of its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Achieving that goal would
be seen as a considerable bonus for Moscow.
Obama’s role in this developing scandal is
also coming under scrutiny. Members of Congress and White House officials told
the Washington Post that Obama was worried that if he went public with evidence
of Russian meddling during the election, he would be accused of using national
intelligence resources to boost Clinton’s chances.
In the light of the CIA findings, which are
supported by other US agencies, Obama’s approach now looks excessively
cautious. Conversely, Republican senators who privately opposed earlier release
of the Russia-related information because they feared it would harm Trump are
now also open to criticism.
The CIA revelations shed new light on the
timing and content of this week’s unusual public speech by the head of
Britain’s MI6, Alex Younger. In remarks that were plainly directed at Russia,
Younger said the UK and other European democracies faced a “fundamental threat”
from hostile states employing cyber-attacks, propaganda and “subversion of the
democratic process”.
“The risks at stake are profound and
represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty. They should be a concern to
all those who share democratic values,” Younger warned.
Since MI6 is likely to have known in advance
about the CIA’s latest findings concerning Moscow’s role in Trump’s election,
there will be speculation that Younger was basing his statements, in part, on
suspicions of Russian meddling in Britain’s Brexit referendum campaign.
Putin’s government was widely seen as
favouring Brexit, as a way of assisting its long-term strategic aim of
weakening and dividing Europe and Nato. Any evidence of direct or indirect
Russian interference in the British referendum campaign would be politically
explosive.
Concerns will also now be heightened over
forthcoming presidential elections in France, where Marine Le Pen’s pro-Moscow
Front National has sought Russian election funding, and in Germany, where
Europe’s most influential leader and a long-time Putin adversary, Angela
Merkel, faces a re-election battle against far-right groups in September.