Hillary Clinton: Russia Got Help From Americans in Election Meddling ‘The Russians could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided,’ she tells conference
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-russia-got-help-from-americans-in-election-meddling-1496284909?mod=nwsrl_politics_and_policy
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said she believes that Russians likely received help from inside the U.S. on how to effectively use the information that intelligence agencies say was gathered to meddle in last year’s presidential election, which she lost to President Donald Trump.
“The Russians, in my opinion and based on the intel and counterintel people I’ve talked to, could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided,” said Mrs. Clinton at the Code technology conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
Mrs. Clinton added that the guidance would likely have come from Americans and people with polling and data information.
The comments come as federal investigators are looking into contacts between associates of the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Mr. Trump has denied there was any collusion between his campaign and Russia. The talk of collusion stems from Democrats’ disappointment over losing the election, Mr. Trump has said.
Reacting to Mrs. Clinton’s comments, Mr. Trump tweeted late Wednesday: “Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate.”
Mrs. Clinton said she drew her conclusion after reading the report released by the U.S. intelligence community in January that said Russia was behind a sweeping cyber campaign to undermine the election.
She said: “I think it’s fair to ask how did that actually influence the [2016] campaign and how did they know what messages to deliver? Who told them? who were they coordinating with or colluding with?”
Mrs. Clinton said her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state affected the election the most of any factors over which she had control.
She said her use of a private email server “was turned into the biggest scandal since Lord knows when.” She added that she plans to quote others in her forthcoming book who “basically said that this was the biggest nothing-burger.”
She again acknowledged that her use of the server was a “mistake,“ adding that the way it was used by her detractors was “very damaging.”
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