WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence agencies published their findings on Tuesday’s foreign threats to the U.S. presidential election in 2020 on Tuesday afternoon, concluding that Russia and Iran were the most active foreign adversaries involved in trying to influence the outcome.
According to the report, required by law and disqualified by the National Intelligence Director of the Biden government, Avril Haines, on Monday, other foreign actors, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Cuba and Venezuela, were also involved in the attempt to influence the elections, making lesser and less influential efforts to achieve the political outcome of your choice.
In addition, the agencies concluded with “high confidence” that China has chosen not to try to influence the elections directly or indirectly, in addition to the traditional economic and lobbying activities underway.
However, the report’s authors noted a dissenting opinion from the senior intelligence officer in charge of medium to long-term strategic analysis on cyber issues at the National Intelligence Council. The “minority view,” according to the report, is that China has taken “at least some measures to undermine President Trump’s chances of re-election, mainly through social media and official public statements and the media.”
Several lawmakers welcomed the report’s release.
“The American people deserve to know the whole truth when a foreign government tries to interfere in our elections, and today’s release of the Community Intelligence Assessment is an important step,” wrote Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House of Intelligence Committee, in a statement. “The preparation of these reports must be routine and ruthlessly non-partisan, which is why the Intelligence Committee drafted a law determining them after each major election, regardless of who is in the Oval Office.”
In general, intelligence agencies concluded that, unlike in 2016, foreign opponents did not attempt to “alter any technical aspect of the voting process”, from voting machines to voter lists. According to the intelligence community, trying to infiltrate or tamper with technical voting equipment and infrastructure would be incredibly difficult to do “on a scale”, given the vast network of individual state and local systems and increased security preparations. However, the report also noted that, for a number of reasons, to include greater availability of online digital tools and social media, more opponents are trying to influence elections in the United States and are likely to continue to do so in the future.
“While there may be some relief from our voting systems, it looks like we will have to wait for a fight from now on,” wrote John Hultquist, vice president of analysis for cybersecurity company Mandiant Threat Intelligence, in a statement. “This will be particularly challenging in the American context.”
As in 2016, intelligence agencies noted that Russian influence and interference efforts, including the spread of disinformation through social media and individuals with ties to Russian intelligence, were directed or at least tacitly approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin . The attempts at influence, which began as early as 2014, aimed to denigrate Biden and spread the narrative that his family had unpleasant business relationships in Ukraine.
“The report confirms what we have known for a long time: Russian intelligence agents have promoted absurd conspiracy theories about allegedly corrupt activities in Ukraine, including through direct contact with senior US government officials. These same theories have been openly defended by Republicans who seek to boost Donald Trump’s political prospects, ”wrote Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has spoken openly about interference efforts in the Russian elections. “The Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees spent more than a year ‘investigating’ conspiracy theories that were the product of this Russian disinformation campaign. This is the bottom line. The Senate must never again be used to promote dangerous foreign propaganda designed to interfere with our elections. “
The report also addresses Iran’s attempts to influence the election, including social media posts and phishing campaign attempts, as well as an email campaign in which Iranian hackers pretended to be members of a right-wing group, the Proud Boys, and tried to intimidate voters, an effort exposed before the election. These activities were also likely to be approved at the highest level, supreme leader Ali Khamenei, concluded the intelligence community.
Intelligence analysts appeared to disagree about the extent to which Chinese officials were directly interested in interfering in the election. Most concluded that Beijing was more risk-averse than Moscow, whose relationship with the United States is already extremely bad. The minority admitted that there is no evidence that China “tried to interfere in electoral processes”, but assessed that at least “some” of its influencing efforts “were intended to at least indirectly affect candidates, political processes and preferences. of US voters “.
In January, intelligence community ombudsman Barry Zulauf issued an independent review of the rigor of the assessment of Chinese interference in the election, a report that was praised by former acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. Zulauf concluded that the agencies maintained analytical standards, but that there were some cases of politicization, including inconsistent definitions or “altered ruse” when conclusions were reached about China’s electoral threats against Russia. He noted that some career analysts did not want their intelligence to be misused by politicians and, therefore, may have been more reluctant to draw firm conclusions.
This, according to the Washington Post, has led to a dispute between career intelligence officers and political appointees. A source told Yahoo News that, in his opinion, the level of detail and scrutiny applied to the analysis of malignant activities in China is often less than that applied in Russia. However, the source noted that the discrepancy could be attributed to multiple competing realities, to include fewer resources or language skills dedicated to the region.
Another source familiar with the report noted that the ombudsman did not appear to be interviewing other relevant experts, such as the national intelligence officer for East Asia, but was trying to “split the baby” to reflect competing views at senior levels in relation to the post. workforce e-file.
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