Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20.
Photographer: Go Nakamura / Bloomberg
Photographer: Go Nakamura / Bloomberg
China and Iran are working to push American voters against President Donald Trump, while Russia is working against his rival, Joe Biden, intelligence officials said Friday.
“Many foreign actors have the preference for whoever wins the election, which they express through a variety of open and private statements; efforts for secret influence are rarer, ”said William Evanina, director of National Opposition and Security Center, in a statement.
The statement provides the latest assessments by the intelligence community of threats by foreign actors to limit and influence the elections less than three months before the vote.
At the top of the list is China, which sees Trump as “unpredictable” and increasingly critical of the president at Covid-19, Hong Kong and TikTok.
Iran also sees a second Trump term as a threat to its regime, and will use online influence to spread disinformation about the election, Evanina said.
But the review says Russia, which worked on behalf of Trump and against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign, sees Biden as part of an anti-Russia establishment and will use social media and television to denigrate his candidacy.
Evanina said the intelligence community’s assessments were objective and non-political and that it informed both candidates and members of Congress about threats.
“The last thing Russia wants and China wants and Iran wants is that Donald Trump wins,” the president told reporters at an evening news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ
He said his administration “looked into it” when asked what the US would do about the interference.
Chris Krebs, director of the Homeland Security Department Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said “Americans need to make sure we work to keep our elections safe.”
National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said the US “will respond to malicious foreign threats facing our democratic institutions.”
“The United States of America works to identify and disrupt foreign influence efforts aimed at our political system, including efforts designed to suppress voter turnout or undermine public confidence in the integrity of our elections , ‘he said.
Democratic senators such as Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, who in recent days received classified intelligence letters about interference in foreign elections, are alarmed and have demanded a public release of information they received.
Blumenthal had called the secret briefings ‘terrible’.
Acting First Chamber Intelligence Chairman Marco Rubio warned Thursday that foreign actors, including Russia and China, will try to use a chaotic voting process for post-a-vote.
The Florida Republican called on Congress to extend the deadline for states to count their ballots until January and pass its bill to sanctions states that found it necessary to intervene in future U.S. elections.
Rubio and the senior Democrat on the committee, Senator Mark Warner, issued a joint statement asking for all possible information about election interference to be released to combat it.
“And we encourage political leaders on all sides to refrain from arming intelligence weapons for political gain, as this only reinforces the divisive goals of our opponents,” they said.
Evanina said foreign actors may be trying to disrupt election equipment to call into question the legitimacy of the election, but concluded “it would be difficult for our opponents to mediate or manipulate voting results on a scale.”
Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken said his candidate “has led the fight against foreign interference”, adding that Biden “has refused to accept any foreign materials intended to assist him in these elections.”
Amid voted in the 2020 premieres, senior officials of national security noted that Russian disinformation was persistent and that foreign actors used disinformation to influence the public and weaken confidence in democratic institutions.
The November election will also take place during the coronavirus pandemic – a crisis that has seen hacking and disinformation by US competitors. The State Department has warned that foreign opponents have used the outbreak to spread disinformation to advance their priorities. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts saw a spike in hacking during the pandemic, which prompted a Chinese government to try to gain access to valuable research on coronavirus vaccines and treatments.
– With the help of Steven T. Dennis, and Jennifer Epstein
(Adds Trump comments in eighth, ninth paragraphs)
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