The late Sen. John McCain is not done speaking out against President Trump and his ties to Vladimir Putin — as he appears in a new documentary about Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election.
“The fact that there was an attack on the fundamental — the absolute fundamental — a free and fair election, should alarm all of us,’ McCain, who died Saturday of brain cancer, says in “Active Measures,” a new documentary from director Jack Bryan.
In a clip obtained by The Daily Beast, McCain referred to reports from the summer of 2016 that Moscow meddled in the election and Russian hackers targeted US voter-registration databases.
“Active Measures,” which hits the theaters Friday, also features Hillary Clinton, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, Yahoo News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and others.
The title is a Soviet term for the “actions of political warfare conducted by the Russian security services to influence the course of world events,” according to the two-hour documentary.
“This really spooked officials in the White House,” Isikoff says about possible Russian involvement, adding: “And that’s the moment, I think, that the enormity of the Russian influence campaign really started to hit home.”
Bryan argues in the film that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years before he appeared on the presidential landscape.
“The Russians have a particular type of mark who they go after,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) says in the film.
“They go after someone who has business resources, perhaps some shady morals so they are amenable to bribery. Or perhaps they’re in a difficult financial situation or has either political connections or aspirations.”
He then adds after a dramatic pause: “I’ve just described Donald Trump.”
The director told The Daily Beast that he wanted to include McCain in the documentary because he was “the most forceful voice in Congress at speaking out against Russian aggression and standing up for democracy worldwide.”
“In 2004 when Putin tried to rig an election in Ukraine, John McCain stood with the Ukrainian people. In 2016 when Putin tried to do the same thing in America, he was one of the few voices in his party who refused to remain silent,” Bryan told the outlet.
“He and Hillary Clinton were Vladimir Putin’s greatest adversaries in the United States, and without their voices it would be impossible to understand how and why our country arrived at this point.”
The longtime Republican senator and war hero can be seen in the film assailing the Russian strongman as “an individual who poses a threat to the world” and “has no moral standards that I’ve been able to detect.”
McCain seems particularly alarmed by Team Trump’s successful effort to remove from the GOP platform a provision condemning Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine.
“I think that’s part of this whole scandal that needs to be resolved,” McCain says. “Why would the Republican Party remove a provision that would help people who have been invaded and slaughtered defend themselves?”
Rolling his eyes and smiling, he adds: “Interesting.”
In his final dig at Trump for failing to stop Russia from attacking US democracy, McCain says: “As long as people can do things without penalty, they’re going to continue to do them.”
His interview presumably predated Trump’s joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, which McCain described as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
