US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo without citing any evidence told the House Foreign Relations Committee that Russia has been interfering in American elections since at least 2004.
“Yes,” Pompeo said at the hearing on Wednesday when asked if Russia meddled in the presidential election in 2016. “And in 2012, in 2008 and in 2004.”
On Sunday, US Attorney General William Barr in a letter to Congress said Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report concluded that President Donald Trump did not collude with Russia during the 2016 presidential election race. Mueller, however, maintained that Russia did try to interfere in the election, a claim Moscow has repeatedly refuted.
On Monday Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Moscow hopes Washington will now officially admit that claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 election are false.
A 2016 analysis by Carnegie Mellon University revealed that between 1946 and 2000 the US government both overtly and covertly interfered in at least 81 foreign elections – more than twice the figure attributed to the Soviet Union and Russia during the same time period. (UNI)
