Read these 3 books on Putin and Russian interference in the 2016 elections

In the past two weeks, the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election has intensified. Maria Butina, a Russian woman who tried to negotiate a meeting between Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in the 2016 elections, was accused of conspiring to influence the US elections and 12 Russian officials have been charged. At a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, after a private meeting with Mr Putin, President Trump said he believed in Putin's refusal to intervene, raising fears Mr. Trump to side with his own intelligence agencies. He backed down a few days later. Here are three books that give an overview of Putin's rise to power, Russia's participation in the elections and the state of our intelligence community.

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THE NEW TSAR
The rise and reign of Vladimir Putin
] By Steven Lee Myers
572 p. Alfred A. Knopf. (2015)

For a portrait of the man himself, return to Myers' biography, which traces Putin's childhood and his ascent to power, as well as his motives. According to our review, Myers offers "the portrait of a man who goes from one crisis to another with one goal: projecting strength". For Putin, that means keeping control of the country: his closest friends run most of the country's big industries. Putin controls the news media. He developed a system called "Directed Democracy", crushing opposition parties and depriving the people of the right to vote for local or regional governments. Putin once told a group of foreign journalists that the Russians are "backward" and "need time" to adapt to democracy. Myers is a reporter for The Times, and our reviewer wrote that "this is a journalist's book, which collects old notebooks and clips."

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RUSSIAN ROULETTE
The Inner History of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump
By Michael Isikoff and David Corn
338 p. (2018)

According to our review, this is the "most comprehensive and fascinating account" of the alleged interference of Russia in the 2016 US presidential elections. Democrats and Republicans are presented adversely, so that there is "no hero in the" Russian Roulette ", our critic said. The book covers email hacking targeting the Democratic National Committee, as well as various scandals, such as the Hollywood Access Band, which tormented Mr. Trump's candidacy. "Russian piracy, it is now clear, has simply exploited the vulgarity that is already rampant in American political campaigns," wrote our critic, "which goes far beyond vision or values."

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] THE ASSAULT ON INTELLIGENCE
US National Security in the Age of Lies
By Michael V. Hayden
257 pp. Penguin Press. (2018)

In this book, Hayden, a retired air force general who led both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, today criticizes this that he perceives as threats to the American intelligence community. Mr. Trump. The nuclear advance in North Korea and Russia's ability to cyberwar are examples of the vulnerability of the United States. Hayden acknowledges that the agencies have not responded adequately to the early warnings of the Russian threat to American democracy: "We have embarked on a path of domination over ourselves, we seemed to lack the doctrinal vision for fully understand what the Russians were doing with their wider spectrum information dominance. "According to our review," Hayden is a windy and direct writer "; "It reduces the complex problems of computer warfare and information to the essentials, and its controversy is raised with humor and sympathy."