Opinion: When foreigners meddle

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, February 21, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( Until very recently, the biggest foreign intervention in an American election happened in 1940, when the United States was riven over whether to enter World War II. Both sides in the war got involved. Nazi officials [funneled]( money to delegates at the Democratic convention to get them to vote against Franklin Roosevelt’s nomination and also backed efforts to get Republicans to adopt an antiwar platform. British agents, [as Politico has detailed]( covertly paid for biased polls showing that Americans favored intervention and also worked to defeat a prominent isolationist member of Congress. It’s possible that Britain’s efforts helped swing the Republican nomination to Wendell Willkie, an underdog who was far less isolationist than his rivals. But that’s nothing compared with the 2016 meddling by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In an election decided by fewer than 100,000 votes, Russia’s campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton looks like one of several factors significant enough to have affected the outcome. In contrast with 1940, however, there is a big unanswered question about the ties between Putin and President Trump’s circle: Why do they exist in the first place? The motives of all parties in 1940 were clear, even if the details of the intervention took decades to emerge. The reasons that Trump has seemed so eager to cozy up to Putin, by contrast, remain murky. There are potential business ties, political ties and ideological ties between the two. There is even Trump’s own explanation, which revolves around Syria (and the Islamic State). [In my column today]( I offer a guide for everyone confused by the story — and urge the Senate and F.B.I., now investigating the matter, to avoid the deference they’ve shown Trump so far. 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