Eastern European Rivals Are Looking to Impeachment for the Rules on How to Interfere in 2020
In the likely event the Senate votes to acquit Trump, expect an uptick in Russian disinformation and political interference operations
It’s not just Americans who have a vested interest in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial: In the likely event that Senate votes to acquit the president, European intelligence services expect an uptick in Russian disinformation and political interference operations, sources tell GEN.
Representatives from three NATO member intelligence services — one from a Baltic country, one from a Central European country, and one from Western Europe — said an acquittal of charges that Trump tried to trade military aid to Ukraine for information on a political rival would signal to other nations that such behavior by Russia and other authoritarian states including Hungary, Serbia, and Turkey would be tolerated at least through this year’s general election. The NATO sources all confirmed that their agencies were bracing for “at least a year of total anarchy in disinformation operations, political blackmail, and even assassinations of dissidents,” as the intelligence official in the Baltics who focuses on Russian intelligence activity put it.
