# Foreign Election Interference **Foreign election interference** (or foreign electoral intervention) is an attempt by one government to shape the outcome of another country's election — by backing a preferred candidate, damaging a disfavored one, amplifying disruptive figures, or deepening polarization through disinformation. It is a recurring through-line in this KB because the modern American right has repeatedly been the **intended beneficiary** of such operations: a hostile foreign power calculates that a non-interventionist, nationalist, or disruption-friendly U.S. faction serves its interests, and acts to advantage it. This page is a hub. It collects the cases documented elsewhere in the vault and draws out the pattern that connects them. ## The Pattern Across very different eras, the mechanics rhyme: 1. **A foreign power identifies a U.S. faction whose victory serves its strategic interest** — usually one that would reduce American opposition to that power (Nazi Germany wanting a non-interventionist in 1940; Russia wanting a NATO-skeptic in 2016). 2. **It works through domestic intermediaries rather than acting openly** — a sympathetic businessman, a labor leader, a data firm, a troll farm staffed to impersonate Americans — so the operation reads as homegrown. 3. **Money or media is the vehicle** — direct cash into campaigns and media buys in the older cases; cheap, scalable social-media manipulation in the newer ones. 4. **Exposure comes years late, through captured documents or investigations** — and by then the interference has already been laundered into "just American politics." ## Cases in the Vault ### 1940 — Nazi Germany (the founding American case) The earliest well-documented foreign cash operation in a U.S. presidential cycle. The oilman [[William Rhodes Davis]], bankrolled by [[Hermann Göring]] (who allocated ~$5 million stashed at the German embassy), tried to advantage a non-interventionist outcome against Franklin Roosevelt — funding an anti-Roosevelt effort in Pennsylvania and financing labor leader [[John L. Lewis]]'s October 1940 radio address endorsing Republican [[Wendell Willkie]]. The plan failed when Willkie turned out to be an interventionist and Roosevelt was renominated and re-elected. The full scope surfaced only when captured Nazi documents were released in 1957. See [[1940 Presidential Election]]. ### 2016 — Russia (the modern template) The U.S. [[Intelligence Community Hub]] concluded that Russia conducted a coordinated influence operation to damage [[Hillary Clinton]], boost [[Donald Trump]], and inflame social discord. The [[Internet Research Agency]] troll farm impersonated American voters at scale; hacked materials were laundered through intermediaries; and the data firm [[Cambridge Analytica]] sat at the controversial edge of the targeting apparatus. The [[2016 Presidential Election]] interference was the central subject of the [[Robert Mueller]] investigation. It is the case that made "foreign election interference" a permanent fixture of American political language. ## Relationship to Adjacent Concepts - **[[Active Measures]]** — the Soviet/Russian doctrine of influence operations of which election interference is one instrument - **[[Disinformation]]** — the primary tool of the modern (post-2016) form, where the vehicle shifted from cash to manufactured narrative at scale ## Why It Matters in This KB The throughline is uncomfortable but documented: from 1940 to 2016, hostile foreign powers have repeatedly bet that the American **right-nationalist/non-interventionist** pole served their interests, and have acted to strengthen it. Cataloguing these cases is not a claim that any U.S. faction is simply a foreign creation — it is a record of how external actors have tried to use domestic divisions, and of the intermediaries who let them. ## See Also - [[William Rhodes Davis]] — the 1940 conduit - [[1940 Presidential Election]] — the first documented cash operation - [[2016 Presidential Election]] — the modern template - [[Internet Research Agency]] — the 2016 troll farm - [[Active Measures]] — the parent doctrine - [[Disinformation]] — the modern vehicle