US meddles in elections ‘all the time’: Ron Paul
Former US Congressman Ron Paul says the American government interferes in other countries’ elections “all the time” and cannot blame Russia for doing the same.
Discussing claims by Washington that Moscow had a role in President-elect Donald Trump’s victory on November 8, Paul told Fox Business Network on Wednesday that the outcry was more about “politics."
“I’m sure the Russians are interfering,” noted Paul, a three-time presidential candidate. “We are interfering all the time.”
“If you review the history of how many elections we’ve been involved with, how many countries we’ve invaded and how many people we’ve killed to have our guy in, I’ll tell you what – we don’t have very much room for condemning anybody else,” he added.
Paul said Moscow’s influence on the heated race between Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was “insignificant” and Democrats were only using it as an excuse for their candidate’s surprising defeat.
“I don’t think it made any difference. But when you lose, you can jump on that and make a big point of it," he said.
The administration of US President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that the recent hacking attacks against some Democratic organizations were carried out by Russia as part of Moscow’s plan to interfere in the presidential election.
According to Obama, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies are in possession of evidence that shows Russian President Vladimir Putin supervised the hacks, which targeted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and John Podesta, a top aide to Clinton.
Paul, whose son Rand Paul dropped out of the US presidential race in February, said espionage and election subterfuge were symptoms of big governments.
“I think the spying and interference is sort of the nature of our governments. That’s why I’d like to see government much smaller," he argued.
Putin has categorically denied the US claims, calling on Obama and his administration to either provide evidence or stop their accusations.
WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, has also made it clear that a whistle-blower inside the DNC was behind the leaks and Russia had nothing to do with them.
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