(GNB Desk): The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its declassified report on foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. Federal elections Tuesday.
The report concluded that Russia and Iran both tried to interfere the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Joe Biden through allies of former President Trump and his administration.
The assessment was made in a 15-page report into election interference published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Russia and Iran both carried out operations to try to interfere in the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, according to the declassified report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US,” the report said.
But intelligence experts also found that China, which was previously thought to be expanding its U.S. influence efforts, ultimately did not deploy operations to affect the outcome of the Trump-Biden election.
“China sought stability in its relationship with the United States, did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk getting caught meddling, and assessed its traditional influence tools — primarily targeted economic measures and lobbying — would be sufficient to meet its goal of shaping U.S.-China policy regardless of the winner.”
“We assess that Beijing also believes there is a bipartisan consensus against China in the United States that leaves no prospect for a pro-China administration regardless of the election outcome,” the report adds.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini authorized a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign” aimed at damaging Trump’s election prospects and undermining confidence in the election, according to the assessment.
Venezuela, Lebanese Hizbollah, Cuba and some profit-motivated cybercriminals were also involved in smaller-scale attempts to influence the election, according to the assessment.
Those assessments from the U.S. intelligence community, each of which were delivered with “high confidence,” came in a declassified report released through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The investigation was carried out by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.
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