James Woolsey: Russia Has Been Trying to Influence Western Elections for Decades

Former CIA Director James Woolsey discussed the allegations of Russian hacking in the 2016 election cycle with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily.

“In the first place, the Russians using propaganda, or various other means of that sort, have been on their neighbors and other countries’ cases now since at least the 1940s, and possibly going back into the 30s,” Woolsey pointed out.

“They call it dezinformatsiya, ‘disinformation,’ otherwise known as lying,” he explained. “Thousands of people are involved in producing fake newspapers, fake frontispieces for books, on and on and on. They go after the institutions that they believe can help hold the West together, and push the West towards its culture and history. They go after the Catholic Church. They go after Jews. They go after democratic political parties in Europe. They’ve been doing this for three-quarters of a century.”

“So hacking is not new; it’s just carried out with different mechanical devices than back in the 1930s. They’re never not causing trouble..

“It doesn’t mean that they’ve successfully tinkered with the voting process and gotten dead people on the rolls to vote, or that sort of thing,” he added.

For his part, Woolsey thought the incoming administration should “be friendly” with Russia but remain on guard at all times.

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