In 2016, the United States experienced what many would refer to as a “national crisis”. Russia, after many attempts, interfered with the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. As per US authorities, Russian programmers made rehashed endeavors before the 2016 decision to get into significant US establishments, including the state department and the White House. These orders were originated form Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to place Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton. (Sullivan,2017) The strategies were basic in that they just involved the release of phishing messages with the expectation that somebody would click. (Harding, 2016) With these attacks still happening, US intelligence officials have an ongoing investigation into the interests and motives of the Russian interferes. Social media has been a source of both incorrect and theorized ideas of the motives of the crimes by both the Russians and even some talk of Donald Trump having a role in it. Regardless of the role Russia had in the election, in 2017 it was stated publicly that the interference did not ultimately interfere with the tallying or affect voting machines. (Sullivan, 2017) The use of phishing as a way to hack into the system is not a new situation, information warfare has been a recurring issue and continues to effect individuals every day from the government to businesses and even to normal people at home. The interference and investigation consisted of many aspects including direct links by Trump officials with Russia, social media fraud, Russian hacking, renunciations of misconduct by Trump and his campaign and the federal search of Russian intrusion. (Yourish, 2018)
Donald Trump announced his candidacy on June 6, 2015. Soon after, Trump was sent an offer to come to Moscow for the 60th birthday celebration of Aras Agalarov, a Russian extremely rich individual who co-facilitated the Miss Universe expo with Donald Trump in 2013. Later that year in October, the Trump Organization started to seek after a land venture in Moscow for new real estate. This was the first instance of Donald Trump associating himself with Russia. (Yourish, 2018) In November, Felix Slater, a Russian business man that Trump was associating himself with during the real estate endeavor, sent an email to Cohn stating, ““I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.” (Yourish, 2018) Russia also played a part in Trumps campaign by offering to set up a social media website in support of his candidacy. The first instance of social media fraud occurred following the start of the republican primaries. The top military intelligence in Russia hacked the Democrats while a system of Russian PC authorities utilized stolen characters, fake identities and phony social media records and promotions to sow dissension and undermine the race. (Yourish, 2018) Russian hackers sent a phishing email to Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman and continued to take the lot of his emails totaling around 50,000 messages. (Yourish, 2018) The hackers also released many fake social media ads saying things like, “You know, a great number of black people support us saying that #HillaryClintonIsNotMyPresident.” And “I say no to Hillary Clinton / I say no to manipulation.” These fake ads were sent to democratic campaign members through spearfishing emails. (Yourish, 2018) Donald Trump was elected in November, 2016 and even after his election, the social media hacking by Russians continued to spew fake ads demeaning Hilary and supporting Trump. Russia, to a great extent, commanded the national political discussion after Donald Trump was chosen. US intelligence organizations inferred that President Vladimir V. Putin requested the crusade to meddle in the decision. Questionable contacts and allegations of endeavors by Trump to end the federal investigation become known. Donald Trump begun posting several tweets that attacked the federal investigation and refuted any association with the offense. (Yourish, 2018) During the investigation, officials sought to determine exactly who ordered the attack and what their intentions were. Vladimir Putin was an obvious target and proved the be the source. “Specifically, Putin appears to believe that Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, was personally directing these kinds of operations against him.” (Ewing, 2018) Vladimir Putin stated that he had assumed that the United States was waging a campaign against him and Russia. He specifically mentioned Michael McFaul and Bill Browder. Both of these individuals were looking into illegal actions by Putin and the Russian Administration and Vladimir did not want it to continue and wanted them both turned over to Russia to be prosecuted. Following this, Putin stated that he endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 as a result of Trump's stance on enhancing the U.S. and Russia relationship. U.S. intelligence additionally said Putin had a private vendetta against Hillary Clinton that provoked him to do everything in his power to hinder her presidential attempt. (Ewing, 2018)
Although it has been stated in 2017 that the interference didn’t have a substantial effect on the election results, Mueller submitted a report following that statement that “shows that Russian accounts and agents accomplished more than just stoking divisions and tensions with sloppy propaganda memes.” (McKew, 2018) Through the use of false social media and fake information, many people were highly influenced against Hilary and in support of Donald Trump by Russian hackers. “A key goal of these campaigns was "mainstreaming" an idea—moving it from the fringe to the mainstream and thus making it appear to be a more widely held than it actually is.” (McKew, 2018) Another effect the hacking had is that it is now difficult to discern whether information about the election and the promotion was of American or Russian Origin. This information was mostly in support of Donald Trump, against Hilary Clinton, and often targeted the black population in American and thus has been thought to have decreased voter turnout of that [articular population. (McKew, 2018) Not only did the election interference cause trouble in the election, but it also was the core reason for the demotion and step down of many US officials including National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and talking’s of firing Special Council Robert Mueller. Of these, Robert Mueller us having the biggest effect now. In February 2018, Mueller incriminated several Russian entities with meddling in the election. Mueller assumed control over the request from FBI Director James Comey. Mueller is arraigning people both Russian and American for perpetrating various crimes involved in the election. (Masters, 2018) From October to February, Mueller acquired a claim of fault from one Trump subordinate and arraigned two others. Mueller's office also obtained a plea of guilt from Flynn, who confessed to putting forth false expressions to the FBI about his discussions with Kislyak before Trump's inauguration. In February 2018, Mueller's office indicted thirteen Russians and three Russian organizations, including the Internet Research Agency, with a criminal conspiracy to swindle the United States. In February Mueller's investigators also received an admittance of guilt from Alex van der Zwaan who is a Dutch lawyer and kin of a Russian tycoon.
In 2016 the FBI announced the investigation into the DNC and the Russian hacking. The investigation was handled by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security. (Fox, 2016) In January 2017, the FBI and United States Homeland Security issued a report titled, “Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution”. This report explicitly stated Vladimir Putin’s relationship to the hackings. (Sullivan, 2017) The report stated that, “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency,” and that in the future, “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” (Sullivan, 2017) There was alt of evidence that Putin had direct ties with the election interference and email phishing that occurred. “In one of his emails to Cohen, Sater predicts that building a Trump Tower in Moscow will help Trump’s presidential campaign. “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.”” (Yourish, 2018) Sater was the Russian individual that Donald Trump was working with to acquire his new real estate in Moscow. Russian intelligence administrations gathered against the US primary campaigns, think tanks, and campaigning groups they saw as prone to shape future US arrangements. In July 2015, Russian insight accessed the Democratic National Committee and kept up that access until June 2016. (Sullivan, 2017) In conclusion of the investigation, the report released at the beginning of January of 2016 stated that, “Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid “trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said. There was no suggestion that Russia affected actual vote counting or tampered with ballot machines.” (Sullivan, 2017)
It is believed that Russian interference will not stop. This means that we will have to develop ways to combat this meddling. Trump has stated that he is going to develop and implement a team to stop these cyber-attacks from occurring in the future. (Sullivan, 2017) There were an immense amount of cyber interferences false ads posted by Russian hackers, especially that from the Internet Research Agency, a Russian Company. “Facebook announces that more than 3,000 advertisements posted on the social network between June 2015 and May 2017 were linked to Russia.” (CNN, 2018) The biggest infiltration of Russian hackers sprouted from phishing the emails of American political officials. “One of those who did was John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. A New York Times investigation this week revealed that a Podesta aide spotted the dodgy email and forwarded it to a technician.” (Harding, 2016) As described in the module, a representative democracy is one that
relies upon two critical things; an exact portrayal of the desire of the American population through casting a ballot, and the certainty of the people in the voting system. The Russian hackings ruined the representative democracy we held in America. It was proved that the hackers targeted Michigan and Wisconsin, both were disputed but ultimately voted for Trump. (CNN, 2018) To establish a more trusted system and attempt to prevent some of the cyber breaches from Russia, President Trump plans to establish a team to combat the intrusions and has signed sanctions against Russia. (CNN, 2018)
We can conclude that Russia’s interference in our 2016 presidential election deeply damaged our country’s image of representative democracy. Even though, the investigation by the FBI and Homeland Security yielded that Vladimir Putin’s attack didn’t cause Donald Trump to win the election, it stripped the American populations trust in the voting system by posting false social media ads and phishing American official emails to influence voter thoughts. There are still ongoing investigations into whether Trump was aware of Putin’s interference but as of now Trump is attempting to stop these security breaches by implementing a team to combat them.