TIME’s new cover: Inside the secret plan to stop Putin’s election plot https://t.co/byGpS62Nb4 pic.twitter.com/hrbiOuuhC1

— TIME (@TIME) July 20, 2017

År 2009 hade 59% av alla amerikaner förtroende för USA:s valsystem, men år 2015 hade siffrorna dramatiskt förändrats, och strax före 2016 års kongress och presidentval hade endast 30% av amerikanerna förtroende för det amerikanska valsystmets opartiskhet.

De ryska hackarnas attacker mot federala och lokala röstsystem var också större och mer påträngande än man hittills anat.

Massimo Calabresi skriver i en stort uppslagen omslagsartikel i Time Magazine: Inside the Secret Plan to Stop Vladimir Putin’s U.S. Election Plot

It is easy to forget, in the constant flurry of news, that the abiding goal of the Russian operation against the 2016 presidential election was, in the words of the U.S. intelligence community, “to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process.” What unfolded from early spring 2016 through the close of polls on Nov. 8 in states and counties across America was an aggressive attack on the credibility of our elections and a largely unseen and futile attempt by the federal government to counter it. The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. intelligence services worked to identify the hackers and determine how widespread their malicious influence operation was. The feds struggled to help states protect their ballot machines and voter-registration rolls, only to become suspected of election meddling themselves amid mounting partisanship. In the end, realizing there was little they could do to stop what they feared might be a final Russian attack on the vote, the feds worked up an extraordinary plan to limit the damage on Election Day and in the days after.

Putins mål var inte så mycket att hjälpa Trump vinna som att krossa amerikanernas tro på den egna demokratin. Något som han, med Trumps ständiga chatter om falska nyheter och egna skandaler kan sägas ha uppnått.