Brazile

connected loans to Le Pen helped her to run when French banks failed to finance her candidacy.

As for collusion, the head of France’s presidential election “condemned” Russian cyberattacks against Le Pen’s opponent, who is pro-European Union. And France’s top spy agency held a defense meeting over new intelligence that Russia will “flood the internet with millions of positive posts about Le Pen -and by publishing her opponents’ confidential emails.”

Le Pen’s alliance with Russia is echoed in Germany, where a far-right attempt is underway to unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel. This February, Frauke Petry (a German Le Pen) has held “secretive meetings in Moscow” with “highlevel politicians.” British Labour Party member Ben Bradshaw told Parliament that German intelligence has “serious concerns” that Russia is “already interfering in (its) election.”

Extreme-right parties in Europe (and Trump), have almost lock-step goals that align with Russian interests. Evidence is strong that there’s been collusion with Putin to win elections in Western democracies. Undermining faith in the democratic process has been a common campaign tactic.

The question is: Can Europe put an end to this meddling before voters go to the polls this year?

The memory of 2016 continues to haunt us. Congress has begun to review what happened, and whether anyone in the Trump campaign assisted the Russians here at home. We still have questions about the role Wikileaks played.

The House Intelligence Committee is in turmoil over the sharing of information with Trump when committee members had yet to see it. Sen. John McCain called it “a bizarre situation.” He’s demanding a nonpartisan “select committee” to investigate, adding, “What the American people have found out so far,” is that Congress “no longer (has) credibility to handle this alone.” There’s a lot we still don’t know, so we need to uncover all the facts and learn from them and strengthen all of our institutions for future elections.