THERE WERE FOREIGN THREATS TO THE 2020 U.S. ELECTIONS

 

…Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, again implicated in involvement in spreading misleading information

 

A declassified report says Russian’s were involved in trying to influence the 2020 election

 

Both Russia and Iran sought to influence the 2020 election.  The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in its report, while it says, a third major adversary, China, did not try.  This contradicts the Trump administration’s false assertions about Beijing’s activity last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in Moscow sought to influence the 2020 election by spreading misleading information about Joe Biden.  This was through prominent individuals, some of whom were close to former president Donald Trump. This is according to the U.S. intelligence community in the report this week.

The report does not identify those individuals by name, but it appears to reference Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, whose repeated meetings with a suspected Russian agent came under scrutiny by U.S. Intelligence officials.

The declassified document, the first U.S. government report on the matter since November’s election, said that no foreign government attempted to change votes or alter results.  This supports U.S. officials’ earlier assessments.

The report confirmed what was widely reported last year; that there were no efforts by any foreign government to mount the sort of broad campaign to influence American voters that the Russians attempted in 2016.  This was achieved when the Russians hacked and released 2016 Democratic Party emails.  Also by circulating divisive ads on social media, plus persistent efforts to hack election-related websites.

While foreign disinformation and interference was a major concern heading into the 2020 campaign, domestic efforts to disrupt the race, including by Trump and his allies, turned out to be of far greater significance.

“Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. “These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”

Indeed, Russia took a range of activities to influence the outcome, and to a far greater degree than any other country.  And it was Putin and the Russian state, the document said, who authorized operations aimed at undercutting Biden’s campaign for president.

According to the report, key element of the strategy was to use Ukrainians linked to Russian intelligence to “launder” unsubstantiated allegations against Biden through U.S. media.  The use of “lawmakers and prominent individuals” was an apparent reference to foreign lawmakers and Mr. Giuliani.

The intelligence community, for instance, agreed that Putin “had purview over” the activities of Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who played a prominent role in advancing the misleading narrative alleging corruption between Biden and Ukraine. Giuliani met with Derkach, whom the United States has sanctioned as an “active” Russian agent, in Ukraine and in the United States in 2019 and 2020.  This was as Giuliani sought to release material that he thought would damage Biden.  Last year, Derkach disclosed edited audio snippets of conversations Biden had as vice president with Ukrainian officials in an attempt to cast negative aspersions on him.

Of course, Putin has said Russia does not interfere in U.S. domestic affairs and did not seek to help Trump get elected in 2016.  Derkach has obviously denied serving as a foreign agent for any country.

As expected, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report as “absolutely unfounded and without proof.”

“We disagree with the conclusions made in this report. Russia did not interfere in the previous election and did not interfere in the election mentioned in this report in 2020. Russia has no relation to any campaigns against any candidates,” And this is what he always says..  

Of course, Giuliani’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

As the election neared, it was determined that Moscow placed increasing emphasis on undermining the candidate it saw as most detrimental to its interests in the region.  As vice president, Biden had played a leading role in the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy and its support for the anti-Putin opposition in Russia.

Though the Kremlin has long favored Trump, who throughout his tenure expressed support for Putin and distrust of his own intelligence community.  It probably saw Trump’s chances for reelection diminishing toward November and thus “took some serious steps” to prepare for a Biden presidency, such as noting that Biden would be more open to arms-control talks, the report said.

Nonetheless, Moscow will continue election influence efforts to advance its goal of weakening Washington, the report said.

“Moscow almost certainly views meddling in US elections as an equitable response to perceived actions by Washington and an opportunity to both undermine US global standing and influence US decision-making,” the report said.

The report’s details about the Kremlin’s use of people close to Trump were known to the intelligence community.  But officials may have been reluctant to disclose them in public statements about election security last year for fear of advancing the narrative promoted by Trump of a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine him.  Also, over concerns about harming counterintelligence probes and revealing sources and methods, former officials said.  They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains politically sensitive.

Iran, by contrast, carried out a covert influence campaign to hurt Trump’s reelection chances, the report said.

While Moscow and Tehran preferred different candidates, they both sought to undermine public confidence in the American electoral process and to stir societal divisions.

Last fall, Iran made a striking foray into U.S. election influence.  In a highly targeted operation, Iranian hackers sent Democratic voters threatening, spoofed emails purporting to be from the far-right group "Proud Boys."  They demanded that they change their party affiliation and vote to reelect Trump.  The hackers also produced a video intending to show alleged voter fraud.

The effort mostly fell flat, but it demonstrated that nations other than Russia were willing to get into the fray.  Such covert cyber operations are “low cost, deniable” and do not depend on physical access to the United States, the report noted.

In a departure from previous Biden administration statements, the new report presents a “high confidence” judgment that China “considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome” of the election.

China “sought stability” in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome of a Trump or Biden victory, as being advantageous enough for “China to risk blowback” if caught, it said.

Last year, top Trump administration officials, including then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and then-National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, falsely suggested that China posed a greater election threat than Russia.  In January, Ratcliffe had charged that career analysts working on the election report failed to capture the full scope of Chinese influence.

The national intelligence officer for cyber, in a minority viewpoint noted in the new report, said that China did take steps to undermine Trump’s reelection chances, assessing that some of Beijing’s influence efforts were intended to at least “indirectly affect” U.S. candidates and voter preferences.

The officer, under whose auspices the report was compiled, felt there were indications that Beijing preferred to see Trump defeated. The report said China increased its efforts over the summer to hurt Trump’s bid, primarily through social media, public statements and the media.

The classified report was produced by the National Intelligence Council, an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that produces assessments coordinated across the intelligence community. It was required by a 2018 executive order.  A public version of the report was mandated by a 2019 law.

Copyright G. Ater 2021