By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
The key reason Republicans have been interfering in U.S. elections is to “amplify” political disputes among American in an effort to distract from Russian foreign policy initiatives, a former FBI official said Sunday.
The indictments filed against 13 Russian operatives earlier this month indicate the interface “really undermined” American democracy, said Leo Taddeo, the former special agent in charge of the Special Operations/Cyber Division of the FBI’s New York office.
“I think it’s fairly clear the Russians have a cheap and effective way to sow discord and confusion and really undermined the basic principles of democracy,” Taddeo, told AM 970AM. “It really wouldn’t matter what the issue was, as long as people were disagreeing.”
Tadeo said the election meddling was a cheap and effective way to sow discord among Americans.
“They’re going to target whatever makes people passionate, whatever will get them out. And they’re going to try to amplify that disagreement and create the kind of division that creates a distraction from America focusing on what Russia thinks is important — things like Ukraine and other foreign policy issues,” he said.
“If Americans aren’t so confident in their president or the Congress or their government in general, then it makes America weaker when it comes time to act on the foreign stage … It’s a brilliant use of a simple technique that’s cheap relative to other intelligence operations [designed] to weaken us,” Taddeo added.
