Masha Gessen Quotes

Donald Trump, for years, had been working with the Russians. He brought people on his campaign who had ties to the Russians.

Russian government was in contact with multiple [Donald] Trump campaign sources while they were doing [attacks]. Russian nemesis in the American government, U.S. State Department, CIA, are not faring well since Donald Trump came to power.

This [British] dossier is still considered to be mostly uncorroborated but it's overall allegation is that the Trump folks knew, the [Donald] Trump folks knew about the Russian campaign to interfere in our election, they supported it, they cooperated with it, and in exchange, they made promises to the Russians.

There should be a response, clearly, if there was meddling. And it does appear that there was some, and therefore, we perhaps should wait for our own investigation by Mr. Mueller to continue and to come to a conclusion before we begin to take steps regarding the Russians.

The possibility that members of the Trump team coordinated and colluded with agents of the Kremlin on Russia's interference in our elections is a profound and disturbing one, but it is pivotal that we approach this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

We've got [evidence] of direct Russian government connections with the [Donald] Trump campaign, during the campaign, while the Russian government was interfering in our election to try to elect Trump.

We do have evidence the [Donald] Trump campaign was working to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue.

The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.

I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the [Donald] Trump campaign.

All the arrows continue to point to a personal, political, and financial relationship that Donald Trump had with the Russians.

If we discover through a thorough and unbiased investigation that Russia has indeed attacked our electoral process directly with the intent to influencing the process, our response needs to be robust, rapid, and proportional. This will shape our relationship with Russia profoundly.

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.

I think what we're learning with the Trump Jr. meeting is when you meet with any Russians, you're meeting with Russian intelligence. And, therefore, President Putin.

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.

Any country needs to know that there are consequences when they get involved in our elections. And I think that's why it's good that the investigations are going on and we're analyzing and we're looking into all of that, and I think we need to manage it accordingly.

You had two men who knew the exact same thing, which is Russia did meddle in the elections. I think President Trump wanted to make sure that President Putin was aware that he was acknowledging it, that he knew it. I think President Putin did what we all expected him to do, which was deny it.

Yes, the United States deserves criticism for meddling in other elections, but that doesn't mean that we should give foreign nationals the opportunity to meddle in ours.

Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them.

What is missing from the Mueller report is an honest discussion about the origins of the unverified hearsay in the 'Steele dossier' that formed the underpinning of the unprecedented spying effort against Trump and his campaign.

People knew Trump had strange relationships with the Russians even before he was elected. Consequently, there is every reason to investigate whether Donald Trump is a Russian asset.

Russia may very well be front and center again in 2020 as they were in 2016 regarding interference in America's presidential election. But the Trump administration is seeking to use its power of diplomacy to bring other countries into the act as well.

I think it's safe to say that the Russians are extremely interested in anything that has to do with the U.S. political system. And it's not out of the realm of possibility that they are in many other systems.

A Russian citizen who worked for the [Donald] Trump campaign manager in Ukraine, worked for Paul Manafort when Manafort was working in Ukraine, that Russian citizen visited the United States around the time of the Republican convention.

[Donald Trump] said, "Maybe the Russians could find those [Hillary Clinton's] emails - and if the Russians find 'em, please give them to the media." Well, I don't know how you get there from here, but the media then reported that Trump was encouraging the Russians to hack the Hillary campaign and produce the evidence to the media.

Why do you think [Russians] hacked into our election? Because they have to make sure that Donald Trump got elected so that he could help them with what I think is a huuuuge deal, not only to lift these sanctions, but to take over, y'know, all of these Soviet countries and pull 'em back into the Soviet Union, so that they could have access it to all of these resources. It's clear to me!