Gov. Terry McAuliffe said "it's treason" if investigations find that a U.S. citizen helped Russia to "destabilize and hurt our country," the Virginia Democrat told David Axelrod's "The Axe Files" podcast.
Though McAuliffe doesn't think the indictments earlier this week prove treason yet, he said it's "just the beginning of a long series of things that are about to come," and that somebody had to be giving Russians a "roadmap" on how to pull off election interference.
"It's not treason today, but if we do find out that they were working with a foreign actor who wants to destabilize and hurt our country … if we find that any U.S. citizen was involved in this, it's treason," McAuliffe told Axelrod.
"The crux of this entire issue, is that people were working with a foreign government, who you know is not working in our best interests, to destabilize our elections and to destabilize our country," said the termed-out governor.
"Somebody had to give these people a roadmap of who to talk to, what names to put on memos and things," McAuliffe said. "Somebody gave them a roadmap … what ads to buy and what to be involved in.
"They're not sitting over in Moscow figuring this out," McAuliffe said.
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