[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6268-H6269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         INFLUENCING ELECTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, last year CNN reported that the 
U.S. had interfered or attempted to influence presidential elections in 
other countries at least 81 times. This is probably a very conservative 
estimate.
  This report came from a study by Professor Dov H. Levin of Carnegie 
Mellon University and apparently was just the tip of the iceberg. His 
study covered just years up to 2000, and these activities may have 
increased since that time.
  Professor Levin defined an intervention as ``a costly act which is 
designed to determine the election results in favor of one of the two 
sides.'' He said these acts were carried out in secret two-thirds of 
the time and included ``funding the election campaigns of specific 
parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of 
only one side in various campaigning or public announcements on threats 
in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing 
foreign aid.'' He reported that in 59 percent of these cases the side 
that received assistance came to power.
  In a December 21, 2016, article, the Los Angeles Times said: ``The 
U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential 
elections in other countries.''

                              {time}  1030

  The newspaper reported, that ``the CIA has accused Russia of 
interfering in the 2016 Presidential election by hacking into 
Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing 
emails.'' But the Times added: ``But critics might point out that the 
U.S. has done similar things.''
  I am not criticizing our government's activities in this regard. Some 
of it has been good, designed to fight communism and promote freedom 
around the world. However, some of it has probably been wasteful, and, 
at times, has increased hatred for the U.S. We are involved, in many 
ways, in almost every country around the world through our State 
Department, Agency for International Development, the CIA, the Defense 
Department, and just about every Federal department and agency. Most 
countries take an active interest and involvement in U.S. Presidential 
elections through their citizens and former citizens who now live in 
this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this article from the Los 
Angeles Times.

              [From the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 21, 2016]

   The U.S. Is No Stranger to Interfering in the Elections of Other 
                               Countries

                           (By Nina Agrawal)

       Update: President Obama on Thursday slapped Russia with new 
     penalties for meddling in the U.S. presidential election, 
     kicking out dozens of suspected spies and imposing banking 
     restrictions on five people and four organizations the 
     administration says were involved.
       The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 
     presidential election by hacking into Democratic and 
     Republican computer networks and selectively releasing 
     emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar 
     things.
       The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence 
     presidential elections in other countries--it's done so as 
     many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a 
     database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie 
     Mellon University.
       That number doesn't include military coups and regime 
     change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. 
     didn't like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor 
     does it include general assistance with the electoral 
     process, such as election monitoring.
       Levin defines intervention as ``a costly act which is 
     designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one 
     of the two sides.'' These acts, carried out in secret two-
     thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of 
     specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, 
     training locals of only one side in various campaigning or 
     get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their 
     campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats 
     in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or 
     withdrawing foreign aid.
       In 59 percent of these cases, the side that received 
     assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the 
     average effect of ``partisan electoral interventions'' to be 
     only about a 3 percent increase in vote share.
       The U.S. hasn't been the only one trying to interfere in 
     other countries' elections, according to Levin's data. Russia 
     attempted to

[[Page H6269]]

     sway 36 foreign elections from the end of World War II to the 
     turn of the century--meaning that, in total, at least one of 
     the two great powers of the 20th century intervened in about 
     1 of every 9 competitive, national-level executive elections 
     in that time period.
       Italy's 1948 general election is an early example of a race 
     where U.S. actions probably influenced the outcome.
       ``We threw everything, including the kitchen sink'' at 
     helping the Christian Democrats beat the Communists in Italy, 
     said Levin, including covertly delivering ``bags of money'' 
     to cover campaign expenses, sending experts to help run the 
     campaign, subsidizing ``pork'' projects like land 
     reclamation, and threatening publicly to end U.S. aid to 
     Italy if the Communists were elected.
       Levin said that U.S. intervention probably played an 
     important role in preventing a Communist Party victory, not 
     just in 1948, but in seven subsequent Italian elections. 
     Throughout the Cold War, U.S. involvement in foreign 
     elections was mainly motivated by the goal of containing 
     communism, said Thomas Carothers, a foreign policy expert at 
     the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ``The U.S. 
     didn't want to see left-wing governments elected, and so it 
     did engage fairly often in trying to influence elections in 
     other countries,'' Carothers said.
       This approach carried over into the immediate post-Soviet 
     period.
       In the 1990 Nicaragua elections, the CIA leaked damaging 
     information on alleged corruption by the Marxist Sandinistas 
     to German newspapers, according to Levin. The opposition used 
     those reports against the Sandinista candidate, Daniel 
     Ortega. He lost to opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro.
       In Czechoslovakia that same year, the U.S. provided 
     training and campaign funding to Vaclav Havel's party and its 
     Slovak affiliate as they planned for the country's first 
     democratic election after its transition away from communism.
       ``The thinking was that we wanted to make sure communism 
     was dead and buried,'' said Levin.
       Even after that, the U.S. continued trying to influence 
     elections in its favor.
       In Haiti after the 1986 overthrow of dictator and U.S. ally 
     Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier, the CIA sought to support 
     particular candidates and undermine Jean-Bertrande Aristide, 
     a Roman Catholic priest and proponent of liberation theology. 
     The New York Times reported in the 1990s that the CIA had on 
     its payroll members of the military junta that would 
     ultimately unseat Aristide after he was democratically 
     elected in a landslide over Marc Bazin, a former World Bank 
     official and finance minister favored by the U.S. The U.S. 
     also attempted to sway Russian elections.
       In 1996, with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the 
     Russian economy flailing, President Clinton endorsed a $10.2-
     billion loan from the International Monetary Fund linked to 
     privatization, trade liberalization and other measures that 
     would move Russia toward a capitalist economy. Yeltsin used 
     the loan to bolster his popular support, telling voters that 
     only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans, 
     according to media reports at the time. He used the money, in 
     part, for social spending before the election, including 
     payment of back wages and pensions.
       In the Middle East, the U.S. has aimed to bolster 
     candidates who could further the Israeli-Palestinian peace 
     process. In 1996, seeking to fulfill the legacy of 
     assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the 
     peace accords the U.S. brokered, Clinton openly supported 
     Shimon Peres, convening a peace summit in the Egyptian resort 
     of Sharm el Sheik to boost his popular support and inviting 
     him to a meeting at the White House a month before the 
     election.
       ``We were persuaded that if [Likud candidate Benjamin] 
     Netanyahu were elected, the peace process would be closed for 
     the season,'' said Aaron David Miller, who worked at the 
     State Department at the time.
       In 1999, in a more subtle effort to sway the election, top 
     Clinton strategists, including James Carville, were sent to 
     advise Labor candidate Ehud Barak in the election against 
     Netanyahu.
       In Yugoslavia, the U.S. and NATO had long sought to cut off 
     Serbian nationalist and Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic 
     from the international system through economic sanctions and 
     military action. In 2000, the U.S. spent millions of dollars 
     in aid for political parties, campaign costs and independent 
     media. Funding and broadcast equipment provided to the media 
     arms of the opposition were a decisive factor in electing 
     opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica as Yugoslav 
     president, according to Levin. ``If it wouldn't have been for 
     overt intervention . . . Milosevic would have been very 
     likely to have won another term,'' he said.


                   Supporting Congressman  Jim Jordan

  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, there is greater turnover in 
elective offices today than ever before. And in my 30 years in 
Congress, I have now served with almost 1,500 other Members. Almost all 
have been good, kind men and women. But one of the best, one of the 
kindest is my friend,  Jim Jordan.
  Now, Congressman Jordan has been attacked with one of the dirtiest, 
most low-down political hit jobs that I have ever seen. He has been 
accused of knowing about, but failing to report, sexual abuse that 
occurred 25 to 30 years ago. This alleged abuse was done not by Mr. 
Jordan but by another man, a team doctor, who has been dead for 13 
years. And this abuse was not done to little boys or girls. It was 
supposedly done to grown adult men, Ohio State wrestlers, none of whom 
reported it at the time.
  The timing is so suspicious coming out now when Mr. Jordan may be 
seeking a leadership post. He is supposed to have known about this 
because of locker-room banter.
  All the coaches and many of his players have defended Mr. Jordan, 
calling him one of the most honest men they know. Surely, Mr. Speaker, 
even though politics of hatred is prevalent today, surely we are not 
going to stoop to convicting people based on locker-room banter or 
gossip.

                          ____________________