“We believe that China prefers that President Trump – who sees Beijing as unpredictable – not win a reelection,” William R. Evanina, director of the National Center for Counterintelligence and Security, said in a statement updating the election threat landscape. in the direction of November elections.
“China has expanded its November 2020 influence efforts to shape the policy environment in the United States, to put pressure on political figures it sees as opposed to China’s interests, and to criticize and oppose criticism of China.”
“We note that Russia is using a variety of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’ This is consistent with Moscow’s public criticism of him when he “Vice President was for his role in the Obama administration’s policy on Ukraine and its support for the anti – Putin opposition in Russia,” Evanina added.
Evanina also stated that Iran seeks to “divide American democratic institutions, President Trump, and the country.”
In essence, Evanina’s statement on Friday put two of America’s biggest opponents on opposite sides of the election: Russia for Trump and China for Biden.
The statement by the top intelligence official is also the clearest that the intelligence community has been in suggesting that Russia prefers one candidate over the other in the 2020 race.
At a news conference in his bedminster, New Jersey, country club on Friday night, Trump appeared reluctant to accept the findings of the intelligence community.
Asked if he believed in intelligence, the president replied, “It could be. I mean it can be, very much.”
“I think the last person who wants to see Russia in office is Donald Trump, because no one is smarter about Russia – ever,” Trump said, adding later, “the last thing Russia wants, and China wants, and Iran wants to win for Donald Trump. “
Asked what he would do in response, Trump offered no concrete action, saying, “Well, we’ll take a very close look at it.”
Evanina’s use of the word “denigrate” is also the term used by the intelligence community in its 2017 assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” aimed at harming Hillary Clinton. The intelligence community also concluded that Russia was “clearly in favor” of Trump and sought to help him, an assessment that put pressure on Trump again.
Russia’s goals were to “denigrate” Clinton, according to the 2017 intelligence report.
The prospect of interference in 2020 will further test U.S. defenses against foreign mingling, which Trump has downplayed several times because he rejected any suggestion that Kremlin influence played a role in his election.
Biden’s campaign advisers have already discussed Evanina’s assessment, according to one person familiar with the conversations. The team specifically focused on the semantics of the statement, as it relates to the former vice president, noting that Russia is unambiguously seeking to “denigrate” Biden, while China simply has a preference for a Trump defeat.
Evanina came under fire from Democratic leaders last month when he last issued a warning about efforts by Russia, China and Iran to interfere in the November elections. Lawmakers argued that his statement did not go “nearly far enough” in giving the American public information about foreign attempts to influence the election.
Chamber member Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said on Friday that Evanina’s ruling has ultimately improved by including more detail, but “treats three more actors of different intentions and capacities as equal threats to our democratic elections.”
An official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told CNN that “there is no particular rank and order where the threatening actors are mentioned” in Evanina’s statement.
“Each of these opponents poses a threat to our elections and it is imperative that we all work together as a nation to fight them,” the official told CNN in a statement Friday.
The official said the assessments were the “most current, accurate, and objective election threat information the Intelligence Community has to offer in an unrated institution at this time.”
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday in a statement that Evanina “makes it clear” that “Russian malignant tensions remain a major threat,” adding that it would be a “serious mistake to ignore the growing threats posed by China and Iran.”
The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Christopher Krebs, praised the transparency of Evanina’s statement – but mentioned Russia specifically and not the other countries by name.
“We have long said that Russia and other nation-states are facing our elections,” Krebs said in a statement Friday. “We knew this was true in 2016, we know it’s true today and we know they will continue to try to get interested.”
In a joint statement, the top Republicans and Democrats on the First Committee of the House of Representatives thanked Sens. Marco Rubio and Mark Warner, on Friday Evanina for providing the additional information on the threats and encouraging the intelligence community to “make this information available.”
The two senators also called on “political leaders on all sides to refrain from intensifying matters for political gain, as this only reinforces the divided goals of our opponents.”
But on Friday, the Biden and Trump campaigns responded to the news of Evanina’s warning by volley attacks on each other.
The Biden campaign’s foreign policy adviser, Tony Blinken, accused Trump of “publicly inviting, emboldening, and even trying to force foreign interference in US elections.”
“Joe Biden, on the other hand, has led the fight against foreign interference for years, refusing to accept any foreign material intended to help him in this election – something that Donald Trump and his campaign have repeatedly failed to do. served, “said Blinken.
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh claimed that the Trump administration has held Moscow accountable and is “more expensive over Russia than any administration in history”, including attacks on Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice, who has a potential running mate for Biden is.
“In 2016, it was the Democrats who actively sought the help of foreign nationals in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat President Trump, and it would not surprise anyone if Democratic operatives were again wrong. If anyone had questions about early interference by 2020, it’s Joe Biden’s campaign, “Murtaugh said.
In her statement Friday, Evanina said, “Many foreign actors have a preference for whoever wins the election, which they express through a range of open and private statements; efforts for secret influence are rarer.”
In giving an example of Russia’s attempt to “denigrate” Biden, Evanina accused pro-Russian Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach of “spreading allegations of corruption” to undermine Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.
Evanina also said that some with ties to the Kremlin are trying to boost Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian TV.
“Beijing recognizes that all these efforts could affect the presidential race,” Evanina said.
The report focused in particular on the Russian government’s use of this network to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic as it spread around the world. It does not mention Russian disinformation in the context of the US presidential election in 2020, however, because it falls outside the mandate of the department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which focuses on foreign affairs. propaganda and disinformation aimed at foreign audiences.
This story has been updated with comments from Mitch McConnell.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Marshall Cohen, Vivian Salama, Jennifer Hansler, Arlette Saenz, Sarah Mucha, Donald Judd, Alex Rogers and Phil Mattingly have contributed to this report.
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