For those who didn't read or watch the testimony of former U.S. National Security Counsel specialist and intelligence analyst Fiona Hill before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee,
her opening statement (especially pages 5-7) is well worth a few minutes of your time.
In it, she provided some interesting detail that I don't recall reading elsewhere that Russia invested large amounts of money to support its covert effort to influence the 2016 election. This, in addition to its creation of user accounts on social media that purported to be those of American political activists and groups, is how Russian intelligence operatives have been able to inject self-serving fictions into right-wing media―such as the narrative that it was Ukraine rather than Russia that was trying to manipulate the 2016 election result, which President Trump repeated yet again today.
These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.
Hill's points reportedly have been independently made during classified (i.e., secret) briefings given in recent weeks to members of the U.S. Senate—not surprising, since Hill is one of the few individuals to testify who would have had access to the classified information about the Russian program of political disruption that has been collected by the U.S. government and its intelligence partners.
Hill said Russia currently is "gearing up" for covert operations to influence the 2020 election. While her comments were intended to apply to Russian operations within the United States, no doubt there have been and will continue to be similar efforts to influence elections in the United Kingdom and continental Europe.
