MADDOW: Speaking of dictators, the Justice Department and the State Department have taken another of act -- a number of actions in the past several weeks, striking actions, to both call out and indict and take action against the Kremlin for their attempts at interfering in this -- in yet another presidential election cycle on Trump's behalf.
The State Department has put out a $10 million reward for information leading to -- for information about people who are trying to -- about entities that are trying to illegally interfere in our election. We have seen these dramatic indictments from the Justice Department, including for paying millions of dollars, the Kremlin paying millions of dollars to pro-Trump influencers.
We have seen the Justice Department seize Web domains, where the Kremlin had set up news sites, what looked like news sites, looked like versions of American news sites, but were secretly operated by the Russian intelligence services or by the Russian government.
You feel like the U.S. government is sort of starting to figure out how to do this and taking this seriously enough, or do you still think there's a far distance to go?
CLINTON: I think there's a far distance to go.
I applaud the actions taken by the Justice Department and the State Department. I think that they're very important. But, truly, we are just at the beginning of uncovering everything that Russia, but not just Russia, other countries, have done and are doing to influence our election.
If you focus on Russia -- and I commend you, Rachel, for your new movie -- because we are only at the beginning of understanding the whole iceberg here. What the Russians started doing in 2015 and 2016, what they continued doing, they have gotten more sophisticated. They aren't even pretending anymore.
Their international news operation, Russia Today, R.T., is an arm of the Russian government, an arm of its intelligence operation. It's basically an extension of their spying efforts. They are using Americans, both those who are witting and willing and those who are unwittingand are just so surprised they're getting $400,000 a week or $100,000 a podcast to parrot Kremlin propaganda.
We know from what even Republicans have said, the chairs of the Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee and other Republicans who are currently in office have said that Republicans go to the floor of the Congress and they parrot Russian talking points.
So, I think it's important to indict the Russians, just as Mueller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda.
And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States. They're not going to be going to a country where they can be extradited or even returning to the United States, unless they are very foolish.
So I think we need to uncover all of the connections and make it very clear that you could vote however you want, but we are not going to let adversaries, whether it is Russia, China, Iran, or anybody else, basically try to influence Americans as to how we should vote in picking our leaders.
