A major theme of the 2016 US presidential campaign has been the campaign to depict Russia as intent on manipulating the election through cyber warfare.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton declared in this week’s final debate that “the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans” and “given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the Internet.” She said the operation has “come from… Putin himself, in an effort… to influence our election.” She accused Republican candidate Donald Trump of being a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.