Congress Must Investigate Russian Hacking, Matt Fecteau, MINDSETTER™

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Monday, December 19, 2016

Matt Fecteau, MINDSETTER™

I supported Mrs. Hillary Clinton for president and worked on her campaign; I admittedly have a bias. However, as an American and more importantly, a veteran, I sincerely believe it is within our democracy’s interest to investigate the Russian influence on this past Presidential election to the fullest extent possible.

During the campaign season, the intelligence community concluded that Russia was behind a number of cyber-attacks. The American government accused Russian sponsored actors of hacking critical voting systems, Clinton's campaign emails, and Democratic party servers then distributing this information through Wikileaks, but believed it was to undermine American confidence in democracy.

A newly disclosed intelligence finding has shed doubt on the pervious finding. Specifically, the C.I.A. has determined that Russian sponsored actors hacked the Republican party servers, but withheld any disclosures to influence the election in favor of Mr. Donald Trump.

In addition, we still don’t know the extent of the hacking. Were there other servers hacked? Did Russia hack Trump’s servers as well? Does Russia have potentially explosive opposition research on our future President?

This is not a far reach for Russia. Russia has been known to meddle in liberal democracies across the world to elected pro-Russian leaders with more equitable policies. The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, worked for the Soviet spy agency, the KGB. This is nothing new.

This should not be a political issue; there is a real potential a foreign country, antagonistic toward American interests influenced our election. Whether a Clinton or Trump supporter, any potential for hostile action that adversely undermines, or much worse, manipulates our democracy should be probed and scrutinized.

Congress has a duty to investigate Russian cyber-attacks on our democracy. We need to have a serious and expansive probe to determine the extent of the meddling in our election. This isn’t political; if Mrs. Clinton was elected president, I would demand the same accountability. We owe it to ourselves and our democracy to ensure that there is no question about the outcome. 

Matt Fecteau ([email protected]) of Pawtucket, Rhode Island was a Democratic candidate for office in 2014 and 2016. He is a former White House national security intern and Iraq war veteran.

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