US senator warns of Russian interference in French election
The head of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee warned on Wednesday (Mar 29) that Russia is interfering in the French election just as it did in the US presidential campaign last year.
Senator Richard Burr, who has access to some of the most highly classified US intelligence, said Moscow has shown a clear will and ability to disrupt elections in Western democracies.
“What we might assess was a very covert effort in 2016 in the United States, is a very overt effort {so damn covert, we have not been able to discover zilch of it – Oui], as well as covert, in Germany and France,” he told reporters.
“I remind you that we’re within 30 days of the first French election, with four candidates. It will go down to two candidates with a runoff in May,” he said. “I think it’s safe by everybody’s judgment that the Russians are actively involved in the French elections.”
Burr is leading the Senate inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign, an effort that US intelligence alleges was directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He said Russia was potentially a “balance disrupter” in the European elections, able to tilt the result toward the candidates it favors.
“So we feel part of our responsibility is to educate the rest of the world about what’s going on, because it’s now into character assassination of candidates.”
In a secular, democratic France one of the prominent presidential candidates was caught by U.S. intelligence … not sipping California Napa Valley wine, but at Putin’s dinner table. Imagine we may never find out what was said and discussed as Marine LePen is unlikely to become France’s next president in the run-off vote.
Russia’s Putin meets French presidential contender Le Pen in Kremlin | Reuters |
President Vladimir Putin met French far-right party leader Marine Le Pen in the Kremlin, handing her a potential boost to her campaign to win next month’s presidential election in France.
Putin told Le Pen Moscow reserved the right to meet any French politician it wanted and that she represented “quite a fast-growing element of European political forces.”
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(Mikhail Klimentyev | TASS | Getty Images)President Vladimir Putin met French far-right party leader Marine Le Pen in the Kremlin, handing her a potential boost to her campaign to win next month’s presidential election in France.
Putin told Le Pen Moscow reserved the right to meet any French politician it wanted and that she represented “quite a fast-growing element of European political forces.”
“Of course I know that the election campaign in France is actively developing,” said Putin. “We do not want to influence events in any way, but we reserve the right to talk to representatives of all the country’s political forces.”
A meeting with Putin is a coup for Le Pen and could help her burnish her foreign policy credentials. While increasingly popular in France, she has struggled to get any backing abroad apart from support offered by other far-right parties.
The warning came days after French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen met Putin in a visit to Moscow as she tries to boost her international status by meeting with world leaders. (LMAO)
U.S. interference by Donald Trump …
○ Donald Trump ‘wants EU to break up in wake of Brexit vote’
○ EU’s Mogherini warns US not to ‘interfere’ in European politics
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More to come …
Powerful U.S. Senators on foreign policy, a short history
By Netanyahu
By “head-cutters” rebels across Turkey-Syrian border
By Saakashvili in Georgia
By the coup d’ état in Ukraine, the Maidan Rebellion
A short history of U.S. interference in elections in sovereign states or otherwise …
