The government of Russia interfered with the 2016 United States presidential election to harm Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign and help the campaigns of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.^[1][2]

On October 7, 2016, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the United States Intelligence Community was sure that the Russian government hacked into e-mail servers with the intention of interfering with the election.^[3] The ODNI′s January 6, 2017 report said the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) had hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the personal Google email account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and sent the files to WikiLeaks.^[4][5]

In January 2017, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said that Russia had also interfered in the elections by creating fake news that was promoted on social media.^[6]