Vladimir Putin and the Russian government interfered in our 2016 presidential election to help defeat Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump get elected. They accomplished this in two ways. First, they assisted Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in hacking the servers of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Clinton campaign officials. Putin then publicly released stolen files and emails from those servers and used them to distract voters from Trump’s scandals and to embarrass Clinton. Secondly, Putin’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) used the stolen identities of real Americans to create a massive social medial campaign which spread misinformation and fostered discord among Americans in an effort to convince them to vote for Trump, or abstain from voting altogether.

Our Justice officials report that between 2013 and 2017, Russia spent more than a million dollars buying advertising on Twitter and Facebook to reach millions of social media users with fabricated articles and disinformation. It also is believed the Trump campaign furnished internal polling data to the Russians which enabled the IRA to target social media postings in swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, among others. In the 2016 election, nearly 129 million votes were cast. Trump won the Electoral College by 78,000 votes even though 2.86 million more Americans voted for Clinton. Advocates say Putin’s efforts likely made the difference between Trump winning or losing.

Proposed Legislation: Reintroduction of H.R.4617 - Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act or the SHIELD Act (116th Congress 2019-2020)
Prospective Sponsor: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA)