Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday morning the United States is not as "pure" as Americans think it is because the government meddles in other countries' elections just as Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Huckabee appeared on "Fox and Friends" and acknowledged that Russia stuck its nose in America's business during the previous presidential campaign.
"We all recognize Russia tried to meddle in our elections. What we also recognize, if our brains weren't left on the nightstand, is it didn't impact the election," he said.
"Hillary didn't lose because of Russia. In fact, she tried to help Russia get a dossier so they could do something damaging to Donald Trump. That's what I want to keep reminding people. There was collusion, and it was Hillary's campaign who did it. Did the Russians try interfere? Yes. Did they succeed? It doesn't appear that they did."
Huckabee then suggested that the U.S. does the same thing to other countries.
"The fact is, we try to interfere in elections all over the world ourselves," he said. "So let's not be too much patting ourselves on the back about how pure we are."
The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia tried to sway the election between now-President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A New York Times report Wednesday night said intelligence officials told Trump two weeks before he took office that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his spies to meddle in the election.
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