Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expressing her concern about a new intelligence report that said Russian operatives want to help President Donald Trump’s re-election prospects and hurt the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
During an interview on MSNBC on Sunday, Clinton was asked what advice she would give to the Biden campaign regarding Russian efforts to meddle in the election.
Clinton responded by suggesting that the fact that Trump administration officials are raising the about attempts to meddle in the election, means there must be a widespread effort by foreign countries to influence the election.Â
“When even the Trump administration intelligence officials have to admit that there is so much activity coming from Russia that is designed to help Trump, then you know there’s so much more than they are even telling us,” she said.
She also claimed that “several senators who have been briefed on the classified side” have warned that the efforts to influence the campaign are “so much worse” than what has been publicly reported.
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Hillary Clinton says she hopes "that even Republicans will find their patriotism, their conscience" regarding foreign election interference and will "try to force some of the classified information into the public arena. pic.twitter.com/d4ZgnU1bFV
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 9, 2020
Clinton went on to urge reporters not “fall for” Russian disinformation in the election. “I hope the press is vigilant and incredibly skeptical about what’s happening online. I hope the press covers the vulnerabilities of our election systems to interference, something that we now know more about than we did right after 2016.”
And she said she hopes that Republicans officials will push for classified information about foreign intervention attempts be made public.
“I hope that even Republicans will find their patriotism, their conscience, try to force some of the classified information into the public arena so that people have a better idea about what’s going on.”
Finally, Clinton urged the Biden campaign to “be as vigorous as possible in refuting and rebutting all the disinformation and flat-out lies that we can expect the Russians to be part of ramping up.”
On Friday, a top U.S. counterintelligence official released a statement that said China, Iran, and Russia will attempt to interfere in the upcoming election. Additionally, the statement said that Russia is trying to hurt Biden’s electoral chances.
