# Putin's decade-long war on American elections > Russia has hit every major US election since 2016, and the defenses built to stop it have been torn down. - Title: Putin's decade-long war on American elections · Mother Jones - Summary: Russia has hit every major US election since 2016, and the defenses built to stop it have been torn down. The machinery that caught Russian election… - Keywords: russia, election security, disinformation, trump, putin, Putin's, decade-long, war, American, elections, Mother Jones - Source: Mother Jones — https://motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/how-russia-won-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-midterm-elections - Author: David Corn - Published: 2026-09-10T08:45:02+00:00 - Read time: 2 min - Topics: russia, election security, disinformation, trump, putin ## A briefing room bombshell In July 2025, then-DNI Tulsi Gabbard walked into the White House briefing room and accused Barack Obama of a "treasonous conspiracy" over the 2016 Russia findings. > treasonous conspiracy ## The documents said otherwise Gabbard misrepresented declassified files to attack the 2017 assessment that Russia hacked Democratic emails and pushed disinformation to hurt Clinton and help Trump. ## Rubio's own committee agreed Mueller documented the interference. So did the Senate intelligence committee, chaired at the time by Republican Marco Rubio. > ordered attacks to harm the Clinton campaign…help the Trump campaign…and undermine US democracy ## It never stopped in 2016 Russian interference has recurred in every major election since. The through line is Trump denying it happens while gutting the government's ability to stop it. ## Giuliani goes to Kyiv For 2020, Trump's personal lawyer built a team to smear Joe Biden over Hunter's Burisma board seat, pushing a prosecutor-firing story that was quickly disproved. ## The KGB-trained source Giuliani teamed with Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia Ukrainian legislator who attended the KGB spy academy, and interviewed him for hours at a hotel outside Kyiv with an OAN crew. > no reason to believe [Derkach] is a Russian agent ## Trump's own Treasury blew it up Three weeks after Trump retweeted clips from Derkach's "bribe tapes," his Treasury sanctioned Derkach as a Russian agent running a covert influence campaign. > an active Russian agent for over a decade ## Fake newsrooms for 2024 Covert networks named Storm-1516 and Doppelganger built sites mimicking the Washington Post and Fox News, seeding stories about expected fraud and bribed judges. ## 968 accounts and a bot farm In July 2024 the Justice Department seized domains and took down 968 X accounts tied to a Russian AI bot farm aimed at swing-state voters. > whole-of-government approach to influence the election ## Cash to MAGA influencers Prosecutors charged RT employees with routing millions through a US media company to right-wing creators like Benny Johnson, who said they knew nothing about the source. > created a large network with electorally significant influence ## Deepfaking Harris and Walz Fabricated videos claimed Harris paralyzed a girl in a hit-and-run and that Walz touched a student. The Walz smear alone was seen by tens of millions. ## The defenses were dismantled The FBI's foreign influence task force and the DNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center were shut down, CISA staffing was slashed, and Rubio closed State's disinformation office. > It's now a free-for-all for foreign intel services seeking influence. ## November is the next target A former top CIA official puts it bluntly: Russia will try again, and this administration looks unwilling to stop it. > One hundred percent: The Russians will want to screw around. ## Unilateral disarmament A past beneficiary of Putin's operations has taken apart the guardrails that would catch the next one, putting his own position ahead of the country's. ## Key takeaway The machinery that caught Russian election interference has been dismantled from the inside, right before the midterms.