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Credit to Author: Brian Barrett| Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2020 01:41:28 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Brian Barrett<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n The point of Kremlin interference has always been to find democracy\u2019s loose seams, and pull.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one line intelligence officials have stuck to about Russian interference in US elections, it\u2019s that it never stopped. Not after the 2016 election<\/a>, not after the 2018 midterms<\/a>, and certainly not now, well into the 2020 primary season. Which is why it should be no great surprise that, as The Washington Post<\/em> first reported<\/a> Friday, US officials warned Bernie Sanders that Russia is \u201cattempting to help\u201d his presidential campaign. It also shouldn\u2019t be read as any kind of endorsement.<\/p>\n The Post<\/em> is slim on details, other than saying that both Sanders and President Trump were briefed on Russia\u2019s efforts. The news follows reports<\/a> Thursday that intelligence officials recently briefed Congress about Russian interference aimed at helping reelect Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care, frankly, who [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants to be president,\u201d Sanders said in a statement to the Post<\/em>. \u201cMy message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do." The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment.<\/p>\n "All of this is part of Russia\u2019s much broader effort to cast democracies as feckless, ineffective, and corrupt."<\/p>\n Jessica Brandt, Alliance for Securing Democracy<\/p>\n To close observers of Russian interference, this all sounds wildly familiar. In 2016, Russian misinformation agents and hackers worked to boost Trump\u2019s electoral chances, but also threw some of their support behind Sanders as he ran against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s indictment<\/a> of the Internet Research Agency troll farm detailed how IRA operatives were instructed to \u201cuse any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump\u2014we support them).\u201d In the summer of 2016, pro-Sanders IRA Facebook accounts spread rumors that Clinton had stolen the Iowa caucus from Sanders and that her campaign had gotten illegal mail-in votes in Broward County, Florida.<\/p>\n Sanders did vote against the Magnitsky Act in 2012, a notorious Putin bugaboo, which could arguably make him a more palatable candidate to the Kremlin. But the distinction between Russia\u2019s support for Trump and Sanders then, as now, is that Russia wanted only Trump to win. Promoting Sanders was simply another means to that end, driving a wedge between two already fraught factions of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IRA's left-leaning accounts focused their efforts on denigrating Clinton,\u201d concluded the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence\u2019s definitive look<\/a> at Russian interference, \u201cand supporting the candidacy of either fellow Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders or Green Party candidate Jill Stein, at the expense of Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2020 playbook remains the same, say Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who studies Russian interference efforts: Elevate Trump, play up that Sanders got a raw deal, and tear down the leading institutional Democrat\u2014then Clinton, now Biden and Bloomberg. Instead of Jill Stein, 2020 has Tulsi Gabbard, who has not left the race and whom Russian media, Watts says, regularly praises.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Kremlin\u2019s strategy for a year has been very straightforward,\u201d Watts says. \u201cThey would like to see Trump reelected.\u201d<\/p>\n Russia has already gone after Biden aggressively, likely hacking into Burisma<\/a>, the Ukrainian gas company whose connection to Hunter Biden has been the focus of conspiratorial narrative by Trump and his allies. Moscow's disinformation efforts in support of Sanders once again focused on Iowa, whose caucus earlier this month was beset by technical difficulties<\/a> (which, to be clear, have not been connected to foreign hacking).<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw Russia amplifying conspiracy theories suggesting that delays in reporting returns were part of an effort to deny Senator Sanders a clear win,\u201d says Jessica Brandt, head of policy and research for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan nonprofit that tracks and counteracts Russian disinformation. \u201cWe also saw them highlighting theories purporting murky ties between other candidates and the company that created the caucus app.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say the activity tracked by ASD is what led directly to the intel briefings being reported on this week. In fact, it seems unlikely: Sanders told The New York Times<\/em><\/a> Friday that he was briefed a month ago, which would be before the Iowa fallout. But it does speak to what experts say is Russia\u2019s ultimate goal, which is less about Sanders and more about promoting chaos. The point has always been to find democracy\u2019s loose seams, and pull.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of this is part of Russia\u2019s much broader effort to cast democracies as feckless, ineffective, and corrupt,\u201d says Brandt. \u201cIn other words, to dent democracy\u2019s appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Judging by some US reactions to the latest news, no one has learned anything since 2016.<\/p>\n Soon after the Post<\/em>'s story published on Friday, for example, billionaire Mike Bloomberg\u2019s campaign implied in a tweet that Russia wanted Sanders to win because of his socialist politics.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mike2020\/status\/1230987369920237568<\/a><\/p>\n And while Sanders strongly condemned any interference by Russia in his statement, he also implied to reporters later that the Post<\/em> report came out Friday because<\/a> the Nevada caucuses were the next day, fueling the same grievances Russia feasted on in 2016 and still does today. Russia wants Sanders voters to think the system is rigged. (Trump is a fan<\/a> of this narrative, as well, as he was four years ago.)<\/p>\n \u201cNow we can see everybody trying to spin it to their advantage,\u201d says Watts. \u201cIt\u2019s like, wow, Russia can almost do nothing and they\u2019re still winning. It\u2019s pretty remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n Those reactions matter in part because awareness of Russia\u2019s tactics would ideally help blunt their impact. Especially when it comes to influence operations, Watts says, it seems unlikely that the IRA can move the needle significantly compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Trump and Bloomberg are pumping into social media ads. Hacking is another story, but outside of Burisma there has been no public acknowledgement of a successful cyberattack against a US candidate or affiliate.<\/p>\n So, yes, Russia continues to support Sanders\u2014or, more specifically, the narrative that the process is rigged against him. That\u2019s not the same as wanting Sanders in the White House.<\/p>\n