Russiagate Revisited & A New Jersey Shocker

Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your daily political dispatch from the Swamp, which is getting swampier by the day. Last week, I brought you the deliberations among Moscow’s political elite as to whether Russia should support Joe Biden or Donald Trump; this week, I want to explore what those preferences looked like in practice. That is, what is the Kremlin doing virtually to sway this election? I had way too much fun with this piece so I want to get right to it, without the usual preamble.
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Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your daily political dispatch from the Swamp, which is getting swampier by the day. It’s foreign policy and national security Tuesday and I’m your host, Julia Ioffe.

Last week, I brought you the deliberations among Moscow’s political elite as to whether Russia should support Joe Biden or Donald Trump; this week, I want to explore what those preferences looked like in practice. That is, what is the Kremlin doing virtually to sway this election? I had way too much fun with this piece so I want to get right to it, without the usual preamble.

But first, here’s Abby Livingston from the Hill…

The Bob Good Lottery & New Jersey Shockwaves

The biggest source of chatter on the Hill right now is the fate of Freedom Caucus chairman Bob Good, who’s battling to hold on to his House seat against an onslaught of spending and endorsements—including from his colleagues and Donald Trump—on behalf of his primary opponent, Virginia State Sen. John McGuire. It’s highly unusual to have so many incumbents still standing at this point in the primary season, but at least in Virginia, the incumbent hot streak seems to have...

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Russiagate, Revisited

Eight years on from 2016, much of the Russian influence operation is now run out of the Kremlin, from Putin’s presidential administration. The good news: a lot of it is bafflingly bad and some of it is hilariously awful.

JULIA IOFFE

Back in 2016, the Kremlin had a golden opportunity. Faced with a choice between Hillary Clinton, a Russia hawk whom they loathed, and a gullible businessman who was new to politics and completely enamored of Vladimir Putin, they picked the latter. Evgeny Prigozhin’s troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, swung into action, creating fake social media accounts and stories and buying ads on Facebook. More importantly, the Russian security agencies, the G.R.U. and F.S.B., hacked the D.N.C. and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta’s emails and leaked the information at maximally damaging moments (right before the Democratic convention and just ahead of the election, respectively). The result was chaos within the Democratic Party, an electorate that swung just enough toward...

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