Masha Gessen Quotes

We, America, elected Trump. Putin didn't do it, nor the trolls in St. Petersburg with their zillions of busy bots. They may well have plucked certain strings in the national psyche - played us like a dimestore ukulele - but we were keen to be plucked.

Americans cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Russian interference in our democracy. We need to get to the facts and learn lessons to prevent future misconduct by foreign governments.

Russia has conducted a coordinated cyberattack on state election systems and hacked critical infrastructure. They have used social media to sow chaos and discord in our society. They have beaten and harassed U.S. diplomats and violated anti-proliferation treaties.

The Intelligence Community Assessment concluded first that President Putin directed and influenced a campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the American people in our presidential election process. Second, that he did so to demean Secretary Clinton, and third, that he sought to advantage Mr. Trump.

I'm worried about privacy issues, I'm worried about Russian attacks. They literally, if you if you look at what their insidious aims are - to divide this country, is to make us hate each other, to make us not to trust media.

Regardless of President Trump's involvement, the unredacted portions of Mueller's report make it clear - Russia carried out a coordinated campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election and undermine our democracy.

It should come as no surprise that Russia continues its effort to manipulate Western democracies in a way to sow discord and disagreements between our countries in NATO and within the United States or any other Western European country. And it's something the United States obviously must be on guard against.

There may be evidence the Russians are trying to tamper with elections. The Russians are trying to infiltrate everything we do, and they've succeeded. They've infiltrated Hollywood, they've infiltrated our universities, probably try to infiltrate elections by who knows what. But the idea that there is evidence that Putin was actively trying to elect Trump, there isn't a morsel of evidence for that, yet it shows up. The truth of the matter is that Putin doesn't care who runs the United States. It doesn't matter to him.

The Russians have a long history of interfering in elections - theirs and other people's.

Americans were outraged by Russia's interference in our presidential election, but a wider threat is Russia's doctrine of hybrid warfare, which includes cybersabotage of critical American infrastructure from nuclear plants to electrical grids.

The one thing that the president continues to diminish, which I think is unfortunate, is the fact that the Russian government, at the highest level, deliberately interfered with our election in 2016, and according to all of our experts in the intelligence community, they are coming back with more force in 2018 and 2020.

No single solution or actor can deal with the complex and interrelated challenges to electoral integrity arising from manipulated data, hate speech, and fake news. These phenomena are not new; they have been part of electoral cycles since the advent of democracy.

Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end, and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections.

Russia has a long history of propaganda and trying to influence various nation's cultures and elections. It's happening. They seem to have stepped up their game.

This country cannot tolerate the fact that someone worked with Russia to undermine our democracy.

I think that Russian meddling in the election is an important issue.

We do need to get to the bottom of what Russia did and their interference in the election. And we need to also figure out how the Obama administration failed so miserably to allow Russia to have this type of impact in our country.

Intelligence agencies, congressional leaders, and outside experts have all assessed that Russia was responsible for a sweeping attack on the US election in 2016. Trump has given lip service to this assessment, saying he accepts the intelligence community's conclusions, while acting like he does not.

I have no doubt that Russia tried to meddle in our election. They're going to continue trying to - just like they have my entire lifetime.

I think it's important for people to believe their elections are on the up and up and they aren't being tampered with by anyone, and in this particular instance there's a large body of evidence that at a minimum Russia tried to tamper with our election.

As you are well aware Russia is actively working to undermine our democracy and hurt American businesses at the same time. Now more than ever Americans are looking to Congress for leadership and we must be a united front.

We know for a fact the Russians tried to change the outcome of our election, attacking the very fundamental of democracy. We know they did that. We need to know how, we need to know why, and most of all we need to know what to do to prevent this kind of activity, which they continue to carry on in free nations around the world.

First Russians objective was - as I said earlier - to sow discord, discontent, disruption. And their next objective was - because of the very strong personal animus that Putin himself had for both Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton - and he particularly held her responsible for what he felt was an attempted color revolution in 2011 to attempt to overturn him. So, he had very strong hatred - personal hatred - towards her, and that kind of led him to - if I'm opposed to her, who am I going to favor?

The Russians sought to interfere with the election process - that the cyber hacking that took place by the Russians was part of that campaign, and that they had a clear preference in terms of outcomes.

You've gotta understand what Putin's strategy is. He really doesn't like democracy. He thinks it's an inconvenient, messy process. And he doesn't like us, and he wants to destabilize our country; sow doubt about our democracy.