Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., issued a harsh threat against Russians aiming to tamper with the 2018 midterm elections.
“We have to have the ability to keep track of and to prove to people that these are honest elections and that an outside power didn’t do it,” Rounds said in an interview with John Catsimatidis in New York. “Part of the way we do that is to let the Russians know that if they mess with that stuff there will be hell to pay.”
Rounds’ comments come after Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference with the 2016 campaign, indicted 13 Russian nationals and three groups with charges related to interference.
“They did their best to influence the 2016 elections,” Rounds said, referring to Russia. “But there’s a difference between putting out lots of propaganda, which they did, and using the Internet to disseminate it, which they did.”
Rounds said Russia used bots to get its misinformation onto a lot of different websites.
“They also tried to probe the election system,” the senator added.
The Mueller probe is also investigating whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 campaign.
