Evidence shows Russia tried to sway elections

Yet a quarter of voters say they don’t believe it

While officials have found a lot of evidence that shows Russia sought to impact the United States’ 2016 elections, recent polls show that a quarter of voters don’t believe the Russians interfered.

Spy agencies “continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.” Dan Coats Director of national intelligence

WASHINGTON – For two years, cybersecurity researchers, spies and federal prosecutors have laid out a stunningly thorough chain of evidence to support one simple conclusion: The Russian government sought to sway the 2016 presidential election.

Federal agents have traced data and currency trails across continents, revealed inside knowledge of Russian spies’ computer network, and quoted the private emails of employees at a Russian internet firm working to influence voters. Cybersecurity researchers analyzed malware and followed clues buried in the details of stolen emails.

Those disclosures have left an unusually detailed public view of Russians’ wide-ranging campaign to persuade and divide voters in the months before the presidential election.

While the government sometimes shares its conclusions about national security threats, rarely does it take the risk of revealing so much of its evidence to the world.

“It’s unprecedented, both the activity that’s outlined and the fact that we’re privy to so much information,” said John Carlin, a former chief of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

And it remains widely disbelieved. As recently as July, about a quarter of voters said they thought there was “no Russian interference in the 2016 election,” according to an NPR/Marist poll.

President Donald Trump has long equivocated on the question.

Last month, standing beside Vladimir Putin, he said the Russian president had been “extremely strong and powerful” in his denial of election interference and cast doubt on the work of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Days later, Trump clarified his remarks and said he believed the government’s conclusions, but he suggested afterward on Twitter that the notion of Russian interference “is all a big hoax.”

Meanwhile, warning signs are pouring in that Russians might similarly target this year’s midterm elections.

Facebook said in July that it had detected a sophisticated and secretive political influence operation.

And Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Russian hackers had unsuccessfully targeted her campaign’s computers.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned Thursday that spy agencies “continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.”

The most detailed disclosures about Russia’s intervention in 2016 were a product of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. His office has so far brought criminal charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers and 13 other Russian nationals (plus three private businesses) over what he has alleged were illegal attempts to involve themselves in the presidential election.

The Justice Department has used similar indictments in the past to respond to cyberattacks from foreign military forces; it also has brought cases against Chinese and Iranian officers. The charges offer a way for the government to say publicly that it knows what happened and who did it and to alert the world that it is watching. Each indictment comes at a cost – any information the government reveals in court also risks compromising the tools officials used to gather it. But officials said the trade-off is sometimes worth it because it can help lessen new threats.

“One of the things we ought to be doing, ought to be trying as a country, is to develop some real antibodies to the virus that the Russians have tried to introduce into the body politic,” said David Kris, a former National Security Division chief and a founder of Culper Partners. “That’s especially well met with public disclosure.”

For all that is known, officials say there is more that remains secret. Officials won’t say what that evidence is because it remains classified, but they’ve given hints about the surveillance tools that informed their conclusions.

Adm. Mike Rogers, then the director of the National Security Agency, told lawmakers last year that the laws authorizing the government to eavesdrop on foreign targets had been “instrumental” to its ability to gather intelligence on Russian actors targeting the election.

“In the intelligence world, it’s as incontrovertible as it can get,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

That central conclusion – that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election – has become a rare point of agreement among political factions in Washington who seem to agree on little else. The FBI, CIA and National Security Agency concluded in a rare public assessment in early 2017 that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election” and that he did so in part to help elect Trump.

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee unanimously backed that conclusion. Their GOP House counterparts also backed the conclusion that Russia conducted a “malign influence campaign,” though it disputed Moscow’s motives.

“In the intelligence world, it’s as incontrovertible as it can get.”