Clinton compares Russian election interference in 2016 to 9/11 attacks

WA SHINGTON» Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew a comparison Tuesday between the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, saying that in both cases, a foreign power had attacked the United States, but that in the latter, the president had “done nothing.”

Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, also said she thinks Russian interference and other factors “certainly altered the outcome” in several parts of the country during the last campaign. She criticized President Donald Trump’s response to last year’s violence in Charlottesville, Va., saying he “has thrown his lot in” with white nationalists.

Clinton made the remarks during a widerang ing interview at the Atlantic Festival in Washington.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of boosting Trump’s campaign. The interference included hacking that targeted the Democratic National Committee and the emails of former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta as well as the use of fake social media accounts to spread false information. The hacked emails were allegedly transferred to the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks.

Asked on Tuesday by Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg whether she believed Russia had stolen the election from her, Clinton responded by pointing to a number of factors.

“I believe that the combination of the Russian campaign, the WikiLeaks being the cutout for Russian sto len information, the role that Cambridge Analytica and other organizations like that played in connection with the Republican apparatus, the (Republican) National Committee and other allies and the Trump campaign certainly altered the outcome in enough places that we have to ask, ‘What really happened?’ ” she replied.

Cambridge Analytica has come under criticism for its use of personal Facebook data in elections, but the political consultancy’s influence on the 2016 campaign remains unclear.

Clinton told Goldberg that while she did not want to look backward, “what we know now is incredibly troubling.”

She added that 2016 was the first time “that we have been attacked by a foreign power and have done nothing.”