Ron Paul: ‘We don’t have very much room for condemning’ Russian election meddling

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) says America has little room for criticizing Russia’s apparent meddling in the most recent U.S. presidential election.

“I think it is politics more than anything else,” he said of global election interference on Fox Business Network Wednesday. “This really is nothing new. It’s like, guess what — someone may have done A, B, C.”

“I’m sure the Russians are interfering,” added Paul, a three-time White House hopeful. “We are interfering all the time.”

{mosads}“If you review the history of how many elections we’ve been involved with, how many countries we’ve invaded and how many people we’ve killed to have our guy in, I’ll tell you what — we don’t have very much room for condemning anybody else.”

Paul said Russia did not noticeably influence the heated 2016 race between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, who is now the president-elect.

“I think it’s insignificant. But I don’t think it made any difference. But when you lose, you can jump on that and make a big point of it,” he said.

Paul, who twice sought the presidency as a Republican and once as a Libertarian, added that election subterfuge is a symptom of big governments.

“I think the spying and interference is sort of the nature of our governments. That’s why I’d like to see government much smaller,” he said.

A CIA assessment has reportedly concluded Russia may have intruded in last month’s presidential election to help Trump defeat Clinton.

Intelligence agencies are believed to have identified various individuals who helped the Russian government leak hacked documents from several Democratic sources to WikiLeaks. Compromised parties included the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Trump, who frequently touted revelations from WikiLeaks on the campaign trail, has fiercely denied Moscow aided his White House win, and Russia has denied the allegations as well.