The government of the United Kingdom outlined this morning efforts by the Russian government to illicitly obtain documents that it then leaked in an effort to influence the December 2019 election, according to The Guardian.
Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, called the act “completely unacceptable” in the first recognition by ministers to Russian efforts to disrupt the election. Until this statement, ministers had insisted that there had been no successful effort by Russia to interfere in the country’s elections, although allegations persist about foreign efforts to sway the 2016 Brexit referendum.
In November 2019, Jeremy Corbin, the Leader of the center-left Labour Party, went public with more than 450 pages of official emails reportedly detailing negotiations between Boris Johnson’s administration and the United States about potentially privatizing the National Health Service, providing “total market access” for US suppliers to the UK, and other health care issues.
“On the basis of extensive analysis, the government has concluded that it is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 general election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked government documents,” Raab said in a written statement.
A report is expected to be released next week.
No comment from President Trump on if he spoke to Vladimir Putin about it, and if he believes Putin’s denial over the work of the British investigators.