Intelligence
officials have warned lawmakers that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election
campaign to help President Donald Trump get reelected, three officials familiar
with the closed-door briefing said Thursday.
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| In this June 28, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. |
The warning raises questions about the
integrity of the presidential campaign and whether Trump’s administration is
taking the proper steps to combat the kind of interference that the U.S. saw in
2016.
The officials asked for anonymity to discuss
sensitive intelligence. They said the briefing last week focused on Russia’s
efforts to influence the 2020 election and sow discord in the American
electorate.
The warning was first reported by The New York
Times and The Washington Post. A senior administration official said the news infuriated
Trump, who complained that Democrats would use the information against him.
Over the course of his presidency, Trump has dismissed the intelligence
community’s assessment of Russia’s 2016 election interference as a conspiracy
to undermine his victory.The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to
describe the private meeting.
One day after the Feb. 13 briefing to the House
Intelligence Committee, Trump berated the then-director of national
intelligence, Joseph Maguire, and he announced this week that Maguire would be
replaced by Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist.
U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia
interfered in the 2016 election through social media campaigns and stealing and
distributing emails from Democratic accounts. They say Russia was trying to
boost Trump’s campaign and add chaos to the American political process. Special
counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russian interference was “sweeping and
systematic,” but he did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the
Trump campaign.
Republican lawmakers who were in last week’s
briefing by the DNI’s chief election official, Shelby Pierson, pushed back by
noting that Trump has been tough on Russia, one of the officials said.
While Trump has imposed severe economic
sanctions on Russia, he also has spoken warmly of Russian leader Vladimir Putin
and withdrawn troops from areas, like Syria, where Moscow could fill the
vacuum. He delayed military aid last year to Ukraine, a Russian adversary — a
decision that was at the core of his impeachment proceedings.
The Times said Trump was angry that the House
briefing was made before the panel’s chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, who led the
impeachment proceedings.
Trump on Thursday formally appointed Grenell,
the U.S. ambassador to Germany, to replace Maguire as the new acting director
of national intelligence. Maguire was required to step down soon under federal
law governing acting appointments. The Times cited two administration officials
as saying the timing, after the intelligence briefing, was coincidental.
Grenell’s background is
primarily in politics and media affairs. He lacks the extensive national
security and military experience of Maguire, as well as previous holders of the
position overseeing the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies.
His appointment does little to heal the
president’s fraught relations with the intelligence community, which Trump has
derided as part of a “deep state” of entrenched bureaucrats that seek to
undermine his agenda. The administration has most notably feuded with the
intelligence community over the Russian interference and the events surrounding
Trump’s impeachment.
Pierson told NPR in an interview that aired
last month that the Russians “are already engaging in influence operations
relative to candidates going into 2020. But we do not have evidence at this
time that our adversaries are directly looking at interfering with vote counts
or the vote tallies.”
Pierson, appointed in July 2019 by
then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, works with intelligence
agencies like the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the Department
of Homeland Security to identify anyone seeking to interfere with U.S.
elections.
Pierson told NPR that the U.S. doesn’t know
exactly what the Russians are planning, but she said it’s not just a Russia
problem.
“We’re still also concerned about China, Iran,
non-state actors, hacktivists and frankly — certainly for DHS and FBI - even
Americans that might be looking to undermine confidence in the elections.”
At an open hearing this month, FBI Director
Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia was engaged in
“information warfare” heading into the November election, but that law
enforcement had not seen efforts to target America’s infrastructure. He said
Russia is relying on a covert social media campaign to divide the American
public. - AP
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