The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election

In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation’s top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.

Soon after, the remainder of the Democratic Party machine, the congressional campaign, the Clinton campaign, and their friends and allies in the media were also hacked. Credit cards numbers, phone numbers, and contacts were stolen. In short order, the FBI found that more than twenty-five state election offices had their voter registration systems probed or attacked by the same hackers.

Western intelligence agencies tracked the hack to Russian spy agencies and dubbed them the CYBER BEARS. The media was soon flooded with the stolen information channeled through Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. It was a massive attack on America but the Russian hacks appeared to have a singular goal—elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.

New York Times bestselling author and career intelligence officer Malcolm Nance’s fast paced real-life spy thriller takes you from Vladimir Putin’s rise through the KGB from junior officer to spymaster-in-chief and spells out the story of how he performed the ultimate political manipulation—convincing Donald Trump to abandon seventy years of American foreign policy including the destruction of NATO, cheering the end of the European Union, allowing Russian domination of Eastern Europe, and destroying the existing global order with America at its lead.

The Plot to Hack America is the thrilling true story of how Putin’s spy agency, run by the Russian billionaire class, used the promise of power and influence to cultivate Trump as well as his closest aides, the Kremlin Crew, to become unwitting assets of the Russian government. The goal? To put an end to 240 years of free and fair American democratic elections.

Praise for Malcolm Nance’s New York Times bestselling Defeating ISIS:

“I really think the <2016 Presidential] candidates ought to read this…. You should buy this book.”

—RACHEL MADDOW, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC

“A comprehensive, authoritative, and detailed compendium on the Islamic State (ISIS).”

—Perspectives on Terrorism

“In his detailed and informed study Nance argues that, in effect, America’s War on Terror created a new breed of vicious terrorists who wear the mask of Islam like actors in a Kabuki theatre while carrying out horrifically un-Islamic acts.”

—RICHARD ENGEL, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News, from his foreword

ON RUSSIAN HACKING

“Putin and the leaders throughout the world have no respect for our country anymore and they certainly have no respect for our leader.”

—DONALD TRUMP, Republican presidential candidate and president of the Trump Organization

“We know that Russian intelligence services hacked into the DNC and we know that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be released…. But I think laying out the facts raises serious issues about Russian interference in our elections, in our democracy.”

—HILLARY CLINTON, Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State

“What we do know is that the Russians hack our systems. Not just government systems, but private systems.”

—PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

“As an American double agent who worked against Russian intelligence in the US, this book shows how Putin’s spies stop at nothing.”

—NAVEED JAMALI, former double agent and author of How to Catch a Russian Spy

RUSSIA’S RESPONSE

“I wouldn’t know anything about it. You know, there are so many hackers today and they work with such finesse, planting a trail where and when they need…. It’s difficult to trace, if even possible…. The important thing here is what the public was shown…. One shouldn’t draw the public attention from the core of the issue by replacing it with secondary details like who did it.”

—VLADIMIR PUTIN

“Overall, we still see attempts to use—manically use—the Russian issue during the US electoral campaign…. The absurd claims were immediately refuted directly by a presidential candidate’s family.”

—DMITRY PESKOV, Russian government spokesman