Those who claim that the Kremlin tried to promote Trump because the Republican candidate appears to be more favorably disposed toward Russia are wrong. They misunderstand the complex nature of Russian-American relations and underestimate Russian strategy. Moscow understands that its bilateral relationship with Washington rests on a set of longstanding geopolitical variables and does not depend on ephemeral personal relations between individual leaders. The Russian plan is to sow mistrust between Western civil society and Western political institutions, which, given the challenges currently being faced by European and American democracy, is not a far-fetched goal.
I'm pretty sure you could say that most foreign governments that US policy impacts attempt covert action to influence elections. Certainly the Israeli attempts are so brazen as to hardly be classifiable as covert anymore.
