They and their associates contacted “established American media people” and even “helped produce a documentary that was broadcast on an American television network at the end of January 2020,” the clandestine community found.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had “authority over” Derkach’s operations, which the US approved as a Russian agent. Giuliani met with Derkach in Ukraine in 2019 and 2020, while seeking to release the public he believes would harm Biden’s candidacy.
The Russians also tried to hijack the Democratic organizations after the 2018 interim periods and “targeted unsuccessful political actors in the United States in 2019 and 2020” and conducted a phishing campaign against Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, which targeted the former President Kyiv urged to examine the ties between the country. it and Biden’s son, Hunter.
Yet all the extensive Russian intrusion of state and local governments that attracted attention before the election was probably not aimed at changing the final outcome.
The effort has indeed failed to match the Kremlin’s backed efforts to help Trump in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, the espionage community wrote in its unclassified assessment of foreign threats to the U.S. federal election in 2020. And the agencies have no efforts to found abroad to change vote counts or final results.
“We believe that Russian President Putin is supporting the operations aimed at supporting President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the election process and the socio-political divisions in the United States.” reads the review.
“The primary attempt,” the document added, “revolved around a narrative – that Russian actors began spreading as early as 2014, alleging corrupt ties between President Biden, his family and other US officials and Ukraine.” The Russian intelligence services are said to have “relied on the Ukrainian allies and their agents’ networks – including their US contacts – to spread the word.”
Unlike in 2016, ‘however, we have not seen persistent Russian cyber attempts to gain access to electoral infrastructure’, the document, issued by the office of the director of national intelligence, added.
Iran has meanwhile waged a ‘secret influence campaign aimed at undermining Trump’s re-election offer’ without directly promoting its rivals in order to ‘undermine public confidence in the electoral process’ and ‘sow divisions and social tensions’ to aggravate in the country ‘.
“We estimate that Chief Khamenei approved the campaign and that Iran’s military and intelligence services implemented it using open and covert messages and cyber operations,” the investigation said.
The agencies judged with “high confidence” that China made no effort to interfere in the election, although one intelligence official insisted in a minority opinion that Beijing “took at least a few steps to” Trump’s chances ” undermined, mainly by social media and the official public. statements and media. “
The findings largely supports previous statements by Trump-era intelligence community officials who came to the conclusion Moscow and others tried to interfere in U.S. elections.
Capitol Hill Democrats and the former government regularly cheered on the security of the election last year. Democrats initially argued that the government had wrongly placed China in the same league as the threat to Iran and Russia, a conclusion that appears to be in the new report.
The two parties went back and forth for months before reaching a restless ceasefire, although lawmakers worried about the final exam – initially in a 2018 executive order, which called on the intelligence community to draft such a report. a requirement that Congress contain the requirement in law. in 2019 – will be oblique, especially if published before Trump leaves office.
Other important takeaways: The investigation found “no indication that any foreign actor wanted to change any technical aspect of the voting process” during last year’s election, including voter registration, voting or the reported results.
A joint report issued by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security similarly found ‘no evidence that any foreign government agent’ interfered in the voting process.
The conclusions reject some of the most notorious unfounded allegations made by Trump and his allies, including that hackers set up voting machines with foreign governments to put Biden in the Oval Office.
According to the report, other foreign countries, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Cuba and Venezuela, have taken some steps to influence the election, although ‘they were smaller than the influence efforts made by other actors during this election cycle. Cybercriminals disrupted the preparation for the election; we judge that their activities were probably driven by financial motivations. ”
What comes next: Democrats in Congress have praised the release of the unclassified report and urged election security to become a dual issue after Trump.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) Said the espionage community had become better at detecting and defending election interference.
“But the problem of foreign actors trying to influence American voters does not go away, and given the current divisions in this country, it may find fertile ground to grow in the future,” he added.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-California) also said that ‘both parties must speak with one voice and deny all interference in our election. We must guard against it and try to ward off all attempts at foreign interference, and to ensure that American voters decide on American elections. ”
In the report of the intelligence community it was made clear that the Kremlin will retain its influence.
“Moscow almost certainly views interference in US elections as a fair response to actions taken by Washington and an opportunity to undermine US global position and influence US decision-making,” the review said.