Milonov Calls for a Russian Mueller-Style Commission to Examine US Interference in Russian Elections

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 26 – While it is unlikely that any member of the Russian parliament thinks Vladimir Putin colluded with the Americans to win his elections, at least one Duma member, the notorious Vitaly Milonov, says that Moscow should organize a Mueller-style investigation to look into US “interference” in Russia’s presidential votes.

            “Considering the political moment,” Milonov says, “the logical step would be the establishment of a parliamentary commission of the State Duma to investigate the influence of American special services and official government organs on elections within the Russian Federation” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/228498/).

                “Parliamentarians must find evidence of manipulation of the expression of the will of the people from the 1990s and uncover facts of attempts at interference in Russian elections even at the present time,” the deputy continues. The Mueller Commission, he says, didn’t find Russian interference or any collusion between Moscow and Trump; but that shouldn’t stop Moscow.

            Instead, he argues, there is so much evidence of American interference in Russian elections especially in the 1990s that it is time to document it for Russians and the world. Even now, he says, “we see how the Americans are actively manipulating the electoral processes in Ukraine” as they did earlier in the Baltic countries.

            That should be documented, Milonov insists; but Russian experts with whom Dmitry Rodionov of Svobodnaya pressa suggested that no commission was needed as American efforts to influence Russian voters and to work with Boris Yeltsin and others were already so well-documented. Milonov’s proposal, they said, was his effort to attract attention.