It has been oddly amusing, watching certain members of the press treat Russia’s reported interference in the 2016 presidential election as if it were a first.

As it happens, foreign interests have spent decades trying to influence our elections with cash and propaganda. This is a serious and long-running problem, dating back to well before the 2016 presidential election. That the Russians appear to have more to show for their efforts is newsworthy, but they're not the only ones who've had some success in the area of influencing the outcome of American political campaigns.

The San Diego Union-Tribune has the details:



Marco Polo Cortes, 48, was once a well-regarded City Hall insider who had a successful lobbying business. In November, he pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges of conspiracy, making campaign contributions in the name of another and obstruction of justice.

The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Michael Anello was the last to be made in the long-running federal investigation into campaign financing in the 2012 campaign, and the role of Mexican businessman Jose Susumo Azano Matsura.



That’s not all. The conspiracy actually goes deeper:



Azano was convicted in 2016 of orchestrating a scheme to funnel money into the campaigns of candidates Bonnie Dumanis and Bob Filner, via straw donors, independent committees and in-kind campaign services donations.

[…]

Azano was convicted of nearly three dozen charges of campaign violations and conspiracy and was sentenced to three years in prison. Campaign consultant Ravneet Singh was also convicted at the same trial and is serving a 15-month sentence. Three others involved in the scheme were placed on probation.



To be clear, Azano is barred from contributing to U.S. elections on account of the fact that he’s not an American citizen and that he has no legal status on U.S. soil.

Cortes, for his part, admitted to funneling at least $30,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to support Rep. Juan Vargas’, D-Calif., re-election efforts. It was around 2012 that Cortes paired up with San Diego Detective Ernie Encinas (who has pleaded guilty and turned state's evidence) to get Filner elected mayor. (Filner, a former Democratic congressman, was forced to resign after just nine months in office because his serial predatory sexual behavior toward women was exposed.)

Prosecutors said Cortes’ role in the overall scheme was significant, describing it even as “campaign finance on steroids.”

This is just one case of foreign tampering in a U.S. election, and it involves only relatively minor characters. If you don’t think world governments are similarly invested in American elections at a much, much higher levels, you may be in for a bit of a shock.

Russia is clearly not the only player with an interest in the direction of U.S. elections.

That the Kremlin appears to be better at the influence game than most countries is clearly worthy of coverage, especially as they seem to have streamlined the process of distributing agitprop via social media, but the problem is much wider than most media coverage would seem to suggest. Russia is definitely not alone in it efforts to " undermine our democracy."