Putin’s moral equivalence didn’t hold much water. While in the bad old days the CIA would have brought bags of cash to Italian politicians and Chilean strongmen, election influence had since become the territory of the State Department, whose techniques were significantly more timid and transparent. When the United States intervened in contemporary elections, it usually did so to assure that more people had access to the vote. Rather than cash, it stuffed suitcases with an “Internet in a box” to defeat crackdowns on information. It sent out “consultants” to teach novice candidates how to
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