Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election was affirmed in a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report released in April 2020. According to the report, the Russian government actively sought to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton and win the White House. Russia’s methods of interference included hacking into computers to access private information and emails, probing state databases for vulnerabilities, releasing politically damaging information on the internet, spreading false information on social media, and meeting with members of the Trump campaign. While these actions may have influenced the outcome of the election, it is not believed that Russian hackers directly tampered with the vote count.

US intelligence agencies stated that the interference campaign was a direct initiative of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Analysts suggested that it may have been in part driven by Putin's contempt for Clinton, dating back to her criticism of Russia while serving as US secretary of state. It was also noted that Putin and Trump had mutual business interests and other connections, although a Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller found that, despite many contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, there was not enough evidence to charge Trump or his allies with conspiracy. According to many experts, a central goal of the interference campaign was to undermine American democracy by promoting sociopolitical division. While Russia denied any interference, and Trump and many fellow Republicans dismissed or downplayed the findings of the US intelligence community, the issue generated much public attention and contributed to both escalating US-Russian tensions and general controversy surrounding Trump.

Overview

The 2016 US presidential election is widely seen as an important turning point in American politics. The campaign was highly contentious: on the Republican side, business magnate and reality television personality Donald Trump won the nomination over more established rivals despite drawing much criticism for various inflammatory remarks and controversial views; among Democrats, Hillary Clinton became the nominee after a competitive race with Senator Bernie Sanders. While most polls showed Clinton leading Trump by a wide margin prior to the general election in November, Trump ultimately won the presidency in a surprise upset, securing victory in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote.

Even before the election, US intelligence officials began to warn of Russian efforts to influence the outcome. According to later reports, in September and October 2016 President Barack Obama directly warned Putin to cease state-sponsored cyberattacks. In October, a statement from the intelligence community suggested that Russia was behind hacking activity aimed at interfering with US politics, including leaks of sensitive information from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). These allegations gained further attention following the election. By December 2016 it was reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed Russia had worked to both support Trump and oppose Clinton. Soon members of Congress from both parties publicly called for further investigation of the issue, and President Obama formally directed US intelligence agencies to conduct a review. Concerns were also elevated by evidence that Russia had previously attempted to interfere in elections in other countries, including Ukraine and Poland. Trump and his allies, however, dismissed notions of Russian interference and even made public comments attacking the credibility of the CIA.

In January 2017 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on Russian election interference based on findings from the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA). The report concluded that the Russian government had indeed conducted an extensive cyber campaign to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Ordered by Putin, the operation began as far back as 2014 and sought to denigrate Clinton in favor of Trump. However, the report did not outline evidence or offer other details about this determination. Also in January, both the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence launched investigations into Russian election interference.

Numerous other government investigations were also launched and relevant statements were released by various agencies and individuals throughout 2017. For example, that June, the US Department of Homeland Security discovered that individuals linked to the Russian government had tried to infiltrate computer systems related to the election in more than twenty states. The DHS believed that Russian hackers had scanned these systems for weaknesses. There was no indication that votes had actually been compromised, however.

One of the highest-profile probes into Russian interference was the US Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI. Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein established the special counsel in May 2017, in part due to concerns over politicization after President Trump dismissed FBI director James Comey, who had been overseeing the FBI's own investigation. Mueller was directed to examine any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, including a criminal inquiry into the possibility that there had been conspiracy or obstruction of justice. He was assisted by a large team of attorneys, FBI agents, forensic accountants, and intelligence analysts. While the Mueller investigation received bipartisan support—with many observers noting that Mueller himself was a Republican—Trump and many of his supporters repeatedly criticized it as a politically motivated "witch hunt."

Mueller’s investigation lasted for twenty-two months. He and his team interviewed more than five hundred witnesses. In a final report presented in March 2019 (and made public the following month), Mueller concluded that Russia had strongly interfered in the 2016 presidential election, seeking to both damage the Clinton campaign and to support Trump, and that the Trump campaign welcomed the assistance. However, while the report documented numerous ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, it stated there was not enough evidence to bring charges of collusion. Mueller also noted that his investigation could not determine if Trump or his campaign was guilty of obstructing justice; although some evidence of possible obstruction was laid out, the report concluded that only Congress could charge the president.

The Mueller investigation did lead to numerous criminal charges. Among those indicted during the investigation were thirteen Russian nationals for fraud and deceit and twelve Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the computers belonging to the DNC and Hillary Clinton. Mueller also charged Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump’s business partner Rick Gates with money laundering, tax evasion, and foreign lobbying among other charges. According to prosecutors, Manafort laundered about $18 million from income that he earned while lobbying for a Ukrainian pro-Russia political party. Both Manafort and Gates pleaded guilty. In March 2019 Manafort received a sentence of seventy-three months. He served a little over a year before being pardoned by Trump in December 2020. In December 2019 Gates received a sentence of forty-five days for conspiracy and lying to FBI agents.

Other Trump associates were also caught up in the various investigations of Russian election interference. Michael Flynn was Trump’s former national security advisor. In December 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a former Russian ambassador during Trump’s presidential campaign. Flynn awaited sentencing for more than two years and in February 2020 withdrew his guilty plea, further delaying his sentencing. He was pardoned by Trump in November 2020.

Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen was known as Trump’s “fixer.” He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a Trump real estate deal in Moscow. He was sentenced to three years in December 2018. He was released from prison to home confinement in July 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He was not pardoned by Trump.

Roger Stone was a campaign adviser and longtime friend of Trump. He was indicted on five counts of making false statements, one count of obstruction of justice, and one count of witness tampering in connection with his request to find out when WikiLeaks would release more damaging emails about Hillary Clinton. After being convicted by a jury in November 2019, Stone was sentenced to forty months in prison. However, Trump commuted his sentence in July 2020 and in December 2020 pardoned him.

A final Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2020 confirmed the findings of earlier reports concluding that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. Additionally, this report claimed that Trump had encouraged Russian officials to sway the election in his favor. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee also suggested that the threat of Russia’s interference in US elections was ongoing.

Examples of Interference

Hacking Emails. Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election in various ways, including hacking into computers and stealing emails written by the staff of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The hackers included Russian military intelligence agents called GRUs. In March 2016, GRUs sent emails to Clinton’s staff that resembled Google security notifications advising them to change their password. However, when they clicked on the link to do so, they unknowingly gave the Russian agents access to their accounts. GRUs then formed a fake online group to anonymously share the stolen emails with WikiLeaks, which released them, tarnishing Clinton’s image among voters.

GRUs also gained access to the emails of the Democratic Congress Campaign Committee. After doing this, they installed malware on the computers, allowing them to steal documents related to the election.

The Russian agents also managed to get into the computers of the DNC. They then launched DCLeaks.com, where they posted thousands of stolen documents. Through their fake online group, they also shared these documents with WikiLeaks, which released them several days before the Democratic National Convention.

Probing Voter Databases. Russia also probed state voter databases in at least twenty-one states. While they did not change the number of votes during the election, hackers accessed voter registration systems, stealing the personal information of hundreds of thousands of voters. Such information included names, addresses, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers. Accessing this information enabled hackers to alter or delete voter registration information.

Meeting with Trump Campaign. Russian officials also met with members of the Trump campaign. For example, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign adviser to the Trump administration met with Joseph Mifsud, a professor claiming to have connections with the Kremlin, and a young woman professing to be Putin’s niece. Mifsud and the woman (identified as Olga) asked Papadopoulos to help them set up a meeting with Trump, and Papadopoulos passed along this information. The meeting never occurred, however. Papadopoulos became the first Trump associate to be targeted by Mueller. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his meeting with the Russians and served time in prison.

Before giving a speech on foreign policy in April 2016, Trump met with Sergey Kislyak, a Russian ambassador. Later that day, Kislyak also met with attorney Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Flynn, who was Trump’s national security advisor, resigned in February 2017 when his meeting with Kislyak was made public.

Russians also met with Donald Trump Jr., who was involved in his father's campaign. A Russian publicist contacted Trump Jr., promising to have documents that would incriminate Clinton. Trump Jr., Trump, and Manafort met with a lawyer who reportedly told them that Clinton had benefited from dirty Russian money but then quickly changed the subject to Russian sanctions and adoptions. The gathering in June 2016 became known as the Trump Tower meeting and generated much scrutiny in the press.

Spreading Fake News. Russian operatives were highly successful at spreading fake news about Clinton on social media sites. As early as 2014, they began developing a "troll farm" to spread disparaging messages and misinformation on social media. The Internet Research Company (IRA), a Russian organization, is believed to have hired hundreds of internet trolls to post false derogatory news stories about Clinton. Facebook reported that the news posted by the IRA on its platform had reached more than 140 million viewers. During the Mueller investigation, the IRA was charged with criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. In addition to postings on Facebook, more than fifty thousand Twitter accounts were linked to Russian bots, fake accounts posting untrue information. It is estimated that 3.8 million tweets were posted by bots during the 2016 presidential election.

Setting up Rallies. Russians also worked to persuade American voters in person. Trolls posing as grassroots activists set up rallies in swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. In one famous incident in West Palm Beach, Florida, they hired an American woman to pose as Hillary Clinton dressed in a prison uniform.

Dealings in Moscow. Despite Trump’s repeated denials of having an economic relationship with Russian officials, his lawyer Michael Cohen spent nearly a year working to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen had directly asked the Kremlin for assistance and planned a trip to Russia. In November 2018 Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of lying to Congress about the extent of the project, insinuating that Trump had encouraged him to avoid telling the truth.

Impact

While experts agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the effect of that interference is debated. Because Russian efforts largely sought to sway public opinion rather than directly alter vote counts, it is difficult to measure how influential the efforts were. Some observers suggest that the interference probably had little to no effect on the final outcome of the election. They point to research such as a study from New York University released in 2023, which found Russian Twitter campaigns, specifically, mostly reached a small number of Americans who were already deeply entrenched in partisan political views. However, others argue that the interference was so widespread that it likely persuaded enough people to either vote for Trump or not vote for Clinton to make a difference, especially considering the election's close margins in several key swing states.

Regardless of how it actually affected the 2016 election itself, Russian interference in US politics brought significant geopolitical consequences. In late 2016 the Obama administration imposed various sanctions against Russia in response to perceived cyberwarfare, and in 2017 Congress approved additional sanctions. Russia, which continued to deny any interference efforts, imposed its own sanctions in retaliation, escalating tensions that had already been building for several years. US intelligence officials noted that Russian operatives sought to influence the 2020 presidential election as well, although attempts to help Trump win reelection failed. Meanwhile, the issue stoked further controversy around Trump, who remained a highly divisive figure through his presidency and beyond. Trump also continued to show support for Putin, for example praising the Russian president even as international observers decried Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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