Shortly before the presidential debate two weeks ago, NBC News reported on a network of pro-Kremlin social media accounts that were “attempting to spread false narratives.” Not surprisingly, those narratives were intended to help Donald Trump.
This was not an isolated incident. The Wall Street Journal reported this week:
The Russian government has launched a “whole-of-government” effort to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and favors Republican candidate Donald Trump in the race, senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday. The officials didn’t mention Trump by name, but said that Russia’s current activity — described as covert social-media use and other online propaganda efforts — mirrored the 2020 and 2016 election cycles, when Moscow also favored Trump and sought to undermine Democratic candidates, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
A senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters, “We haven’t observed a shift in Russia’s preferences for the presidential race from past elections.”
That seemed like a polite way of effectively saying, “Moscow wanted Trump in power before, and Moscow wants Trump in power now.”
What’s more, Russia’s interest in the outcomes of our election is especially acute right now because of the United States’ support for Ukraine. Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund, who tracks foreign disinformation efforts, told NBC News earlier this year, “Not that they didn’t have an incentive to interfere in the last two presidential elections. But I would say that the incentive to interfere is heightened right now.”
But as Moscow’s efforts come into focus, it’s worth appreciating the familiarity of the circumstances.
In 2016, Russia targeted U.S. elections. There used to be a bipartisan consensus on this obvious and uncontested fact.
In 2018, Russia targeted U.S. elections. Though Trump, for reasons that have never been explained, rejected his own country’s intelligence on the matter, the United States’ top national security officials made it categorically clear that Russia took deliberate steps to interfere in the midterm cycle.
In 2020, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, intelligence officials told Congress about the evidence showing that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign for the express purpose of trying to secure a second term for Trump.
In 2022, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported last year, “The Russian government and its proxies attempted to denigrate the Democratic Party and undermine voter confidence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.”
And in 2024, Russia is once against targeting U.S. elections.
The pattern isn’t exactly subtle.
But as Rachel has explained on the show, one of the most important differences between the Kremlin’s latest efforts and the Putin regime’s earlier intelligence operations is that many Republican officials no longer bother with the pretense that Russian intervention is a problem.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
