Intelligence Community Warns on Election Day Eve that Russia Is Conducting ‘Additional Influence Operations’
The intelligence community issued a public statement on the eve of the 2024 election to warn that foreign adversaries — “particularly Russia” — were conducting additional influence operations “intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of the U.S. elections.”
The statement, by the Biden Administration Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, released Monday said:
Since our statement on Friday, the IC has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states.
The agencies claimed, “Russia is the most active threat,” claiming it was manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to “undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC.”
They also claimed their efforts “risk inciting violence, including against election officials.”
“We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close,” they wrote.
They claimed that “Russian influence actors” recently posted and amplified an article falsely claiming that U.S. officials across swing states plan to orchestrate election fraud “using a range of tactics, such as ballot stuffing and cyberattacks.”
“Russian influence actors also manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona, which involved creating fake overseas ballots and changing voter rolls to favor Vice President Kamala Harris. The Arizona Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claim as false,” the statement said.
The statement, coming just ahead of the 2024 presidential election, was greeted with skepticism from conservatives, including some who recalled the open letter in 2020 by 51 former intelligence officials who claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation and was used to censor discussion about it on social media.
The statement also mentioned Iran, who has been suspected of being behind pro-Gaza rallies in the U.S. and on college campuses, but also behind threats to former President Donald Trump’s life.
“Iran also remains a significant foreign influence threat to U.S. elections. As noted in a prior update, we have assessed that Iran has conducted malicious cyber activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign. Iranian influence actors may also seek to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles. We previously reported that Iran also remains determined to seek revenge against select former US officials whom it views as culpable for the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Soleimani in January 2020. It has repeatedly highlighted former President Donald Trump among its priority targets for retribution,” it said.
“In light of continued influence efforts by foreign adversaries and the increasing volume of inauthentic content online, CISA recommends voters seek out information from trusted, official sources, in particular, state and local election officials,” it said.
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