The populist front runners in Italy’s upcoming general election have threatened to sue anyone who says they received some of the $300 million the U.S. claims Russia has been peddling to influence global elections.
Matteo Salvini of Italy’s Lega party, which is polling strong ahead of the Sept. 25 vote—along with Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia—said Tuesday that his lawyers were ready to file a defamation charge if his name is mentioned tied to the U.S. claim.
That spotlight is focused on several European countries with close ties to Russia that are said to have been involved. Italy’s leading politicians—Salvini, who famously posed wearing a Putin T-Shirt in Red Square, and Silvio Berlusconi, who has had a longtime friendship with Vladimir Putin—are chief among those attracting attention.
The documents were declassified by the Biden administration as a way to attempt to ward off further election meddling, Price said. Italy’s election is the next big vote and could drastically affect the war in Ukraine as both Salvini and Berlusconi have called into question whether they would support continuing sanctions against Russia over the war.
The group will surely be looking at the 2019 Metropol scandal, when Salvini spokesman Gianluca Savoini was accused of negotiating a loan from Moscow through a shell company tied to diesel fuel to be funneled through the state gas company Eni while Salvini was interior minister. Several of Salvini’s cohorts in the Lega party have strong business ties in Russia, which have suffered great economic losses due to sanctions.
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