[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 25, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H7164-H7165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WITHOUT THE RUSSIANS, TRUMP WOULDN'T HAVE WON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from

[[Page H7165]]

New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a column by Max 
Boot, conservative, and very well known. I am quoting completely.
  ``President Trump is willing, under duress, to briefly and 
begrudgingly admit that Russian meddling took place in 2016 before 
reverting to calling it a `big hoax.' But he always maintains that the 
plot against America had no impact; he describes it as a `Democrat 
excuse for losing the '16 election.' Faithfully echoing the President, 
other Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, say it's `clear' 
that Russian interference `didn't have a material effect on our 
elections.' White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even 
claims that the U.S. intelligence community reached that conclusion.
  ``Not quite. Here is the intelligence community's assessment, 
partially declassified in 2017: `We did not make an assessment of the 
impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. 
The U.S. intelligence community is charged with monitoring and 
assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; 
it does not analyze U.S. political processes or U.S. public opinion.'''
  To continue the story that Max wrote: ``When then-CIA Director Mike 
Pompeo claimed last fall that the `intelligence community's assessment 
is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome 
of the election,' his own agency rebuked him.
  ``While the intelligence agencies are silent on the impact of 
Russia's attack, outside experts who have examined the Kremlin 
campaign, which included stealing and sharing Democratic Party emails, 
spreading propaganda online, and hacking State voter rolls, have 
concluded that it did affect an extremely close election decided by 
fewer than 80,000 votes in three States. Clint Watts, a former FBI 
agent, writes in his recent book `Messing with the Enemy,' that `Russia 
absolutely influenced the U.S. Presidential election,' especially in 
Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump's winning margin was less than 1 
percent in each State.
  ``We still don't know the full extent of the Russian interference, 
but we know its propaganda reached 126 million people via Facebook 
alone. A BuzzFeed analysis found that fake news stories on Facebook 
generated more social engagement in the last 3 months of the campaign 
than did legitimate articles: The `20 top-performing false election 
stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 
shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.' Almost all of this `fake 
news' was either started or spread by Russian bots, including claims 
that the Pope had endorsed Trump and that Hillary Clinton had sold 
weapons to the Islamic State.
  ``Elsewhere on social media, tens of thousands of Russian bots spread 
pro-Trump messages on Twitter, which has already notified 1.4 million 
users that they interacted with Russian accounts. The Russian 
disinformation, propagating hashtags such as #Hillary4Prison and #MAGA, 
reflected what the Trump campaign was saying. The Russian bots even 
claimed after every Presidential debate that Trump had won; whereas, 
objective viewers gave each one to Clinton.
  ``Russia also hacked voting systems in at least 39 States; and while 
there is no evidence that vote tallies were changed, Russians may have 
used that stolen data to target their social media or shared the 
results with the Trump campaign. The Senate Intelligence Committee 
found that `in a small number of States,' the Russians may have been 
able to `alter or delete voter registration data,' potentially 
disenfranchising Clinton voters.
  ``And then there was the crucial impact of the Russian hacks of 
Democratic documents disseminated primarily by WikiLeaks. The first 
tranche of stolen documents, more than 19,000 emails and 8,000 
attachments, was strategically released on July 22, 2016, 3 days before 
the Democratic Convention. The resulting news coverage disrupted the 
Clinton campaign's plans by creating the impression that the Democratic 
National Committee was biased against Bernie Sanders and forcing DNC 
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign.
  ``The second tranche of stolen documents was released on October 7, 
just 29 minutes after The Post reported on the `Access Hollywood' 
videotape in which Trump is heard boasting about grabbing women by the 
genitals. These emails, stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John 
Podesta, distracted voter attention by revealing the transcripts of 
lucrative speeches Clinton had given to Goldman Sachs, a populist 
boogeyman.
  ``A third release of stolen emails, on October 11, revealed that 
Democratic operative Donna Brazile, while working at CNN, had provided 
debate questions to Clinton during the primaries and that senior 
Democratic operatives, who were themselves Catholics, had exchanged 
emails disparaging Republicans who cherry-picked their faith for 
political gain. This fueled Trump's narrative that the election was 
`rigged' and that the `Clinton team' was, as he said, `viciously 
attacking Catholics and Evangelicals.' The latter charge, unfair as it 
was, proved especially important in Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Pennsylvania, swing States with lots of Catholic voters.
  ``Little wonder that Trump said `I love WikiLeaks' and mentioned its 
revelations 164 times in the last month of the campaign. `This 
WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable,' Trump said on October 12. Eight days 
later, he marveled, `Boy, that WikiLeaks has done a job on her, hasn't 
it?'
  ``Now, by contrast, Trump and his apologists pretend Russian 
intervention, including WikiLeaks, was no big deal. That beggars 
belief.''
  The end of this is--and I am sorry I have to skip over some of it--
is:
  ``That is the inconvenient truth that Putin Republicans won't 
admit.''

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