The investigations into Russia's election meddling "has gotten confused," and "constant accusations back and forth" have compounded the "growing chaos in our democracy," according to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I think the whole thing has gotten confused, quite frankly," Lankford told "ABC's "This Week." "Americans turn on the TV every day and, regardless of what channel or where they go to look for news online or in print, it's constantly something else seems to be the story.
". . . I think we've lost track of the fact that the Russians were trying to interfere in our election and to sow chaos into our democracy, and every single day I see a growing chaos in our democracy just in the constant accusations back and forth."
While the guiding narrative has been Russians acted to aid President Donald Trump, Lankford told ABC host Martha Raddatz, they want actually just want chaos, something the political bickering on both sides has given them.
"The Russians are trying to interfere with everyone's election, and that's the part that we lose track of: To them, sowing chaos and sowing uncertainty within our democracy is their key goal," Lankford added. "At the end of it, they don't seem to be as focused on a candidate as they are trying to bring down our entire system.
"Their system is a dictatorship. Their system is dominated by [Vladimir] Putin and by his perspectives on it, and they destroy everyone else. This is what they did to Ukraine – where they constantly gave false information out online, constantly pushed on journalists, they constantly pushed on their system to try to bring their system down and weaken it as much as they can. They've done this in other countries. Now, they're doing it to us as well.
"We should respond with sanctions. We should try to push back and also understand they're going to go after every candidate through the process."
Lankford said the challenge is to decipher what is "noise" from what truly can help America move forward against Russia's meddling campaigns, which "they're actively still at work."
"We should make sure that we stay on focus that the Russians are clearly our threat here," Lankford said.
Despite attacks on President Trump for his actions in the last summit with Putin, which had led to another meeting to be delayed until 2019, Lankford said "meeting with our adversaries" can "reduce the noise."
"Even with the Russians interfering in our elections, we need to be able to have dialogues with them, we need to have open lines of communication, the same as what President Obama did in the past when he had open meetings with Putin knowing that Putin was trying to interfere in our elections," he said. "It's appropriate for Trump to be able to do the same thing.
"The big issue, though, is we've got to be able to push back with force."
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