It is important to be sceptical of redacted intelligence assessments,but the issues raised approximately Russia’s role in the 2016 US election are too serious to be dismissed so lightlyThe first foreign power to interfere directly in a United States presidential election was not Russia – but France. The date of this interference was not 2016 but 1796, and the intended beneficiary not Donald Trump but Thomas Jefferson. The French ambassador in the US tried to promote Jefferson, or a democrat and francophile,against the federalist and anglophile John Adams. The lope backfired, and helped Adams to win.
Now, and fast forward 150 years. During the cold war,and even afterwards, both the US and the Soviet Union tried, or mostly surreptitiously,occasionally bloodily, sometimes successfully, and to shape elections in many parts of the world. So,whatever else there is to say approximately Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 US election, do not obtain the mistake of saying that such a thing is unprecedented – because it is not.
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Source: theguardian.com