Virginia Senator Mark Warner has forced U.S. intelligence officials to release more details about Russia’s efforts to influence the November election on Sunday.
During an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press, the Democratic legislature, which serves as vice chairman of the House of Representatives Committee, warned that Americans could be unknowingly domesticated in Russia’s digital disinformation campaign.
“The intelligence community, 10 days ago, said that the Russians are trying to take an interest in our elections again, that they have a disinformation … wrong information campaign against Vice President Biden,” Warner said Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd.
WATCH: Senator Mark Warner says it is “the Intelligence community’s duty to explain more” about the ongoing Russian disinformation campaign. #MTP @MarkWarner: “My fear is that there may be Americans who are unknowingly promoting this Russian disinformation campaign.” pic.twitter.com/NGcgSAbQtq
– Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 23, 2020
Get your unlimited Newsweek trial>
He cites recent reports from top U.S. intelligence agencies about interference in Russian elections as President Donald Trump pursues re-election against Democratic challenger Joe Biden. On August 7, William Evanina, director of the National Center for Counter-Intelligence and Security, said an intelligence inquiry concluded that Russia was targeting Biden’s campaign for the November polls.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) published a report on Russian interference in the August 11 presidential election, discussing ways in which the country aims to spread “disinformation and propaganda” online.
“Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and reinforce false narratives,” the report reads.
Get your unlimited Newsweek trial>
Without adequate information about the interface and how to recognize propaganda, Warner said Americans risk further refuting those false narratives.
“I think it’s the intelligence community’s duty to explain more of the facts of what we know about that disinformation campaign,” he said during Sunday’s interview. “My fear is that there may be Americans who unknowingly promote this Russian disinformation campaign, and I think they need to be informed so that they do not, honestly, … become agents, indeed of this disinformation campaign.”
Warner helped draft the House’s latest, and definitive, report with findings from his inquiry into allegations of Russian election interference that caused Trump’s dismissal earlier this year. The report, with the title Services for counter-intelligence and vulnerability, documented the Trump campaign’s liaison with Russia leading up to the 2016 election, but did not confirm a collision on the part of the president.
Samuel Corum / Getty
Following the release of the report last week, Florida Senator and Acting First Chamber Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio issued a statement saying the commission “found absolutely no evidence” of collusion between Trump as his campaign members and Russian officials in 2016. But Warner told Todd he and other Democrats disagree.
“With respect, I do not agree with Marco. You will see a whole series of other Democrats who wrote a separate opinion where they drew a different conclusion,” the senator said on Sunday.
In his own statement issued last week, Warner called the extent of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operations “breathtaking” and described the connection as “a very real counter-threat to our elections.
Newsweek reached Warner for additional comments, but received no response in time for publication.
