Hardline on foreign meddling
The White House declared yesterday that a ‘‘vast government-wide effort’’ was under way to stop foreign powers meddling in forthcoming midterm elections in the United States.
The most senior figures in America’s intelligence and national security agencies made a succession of speeches from the White House press briefing podium accusing Russia of continuing to pursue a ‘‘pervasive’’ campaign to ‘‘weaken and divide the United States’’.
Ahead of November’s midterm elections, they warned yesterday that American democracy was in the ‘‘crosshairs’’ of foreign adversaries and that ongoing action was needed to protect the country’s ‘‘free and fair’’ elections. And they said that while current Russian interference was not as great as that seen before the 2016 presidential election, it was only ‘‘one keyboard click away’’ from escalating.
The comments came alongside a letter from John Bolton, the White House national security adviser, to Democrat senators outlining what was being done by the federal government. The intervention appeared designed to both reassure the public when they head to the ballot box in a few months and counter criticism that the Trump administration is not being proactive enough to protect the election process.
Last month, the president failed to say that the Kremlin was behind the 2016 election interference during a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki. The stance directly clashed with his own intelligence agencies’ assessment and triggered a wave of criticism. Trump later walked back the remarks, saying he meant to say there was no reason Russia ‘‘would not’’ be behind the attacks rather than ‘‘would’’.
Bolton said in his letter: ‘‘President Trump has not and will not tolerate interference in America’s system of representative government. He has directed a vast, government-wide effort to protect electoral procedures and processes while investigating, prosecuting, and holding accountable those who illegally attempt to interfere.’’
Dan Coats, director of national intelligence – America’s most senior intelligence official – said that Trump had ‘‘specifically’’ tasked agencies to make stopping election meddling a ‘‘top priority’’. He warned: ‘‘We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.’’
Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said the agency was working with ‘‘fierce determination and focus’’ to counter the threat, and Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of Homeland Security, said that ‘‘free and fair elections’’ were the ‘‘cornerstone’’ of America’s political system, adding: ‘‘Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs’’.
The threat of election meddling was broadly split into two categories – spreading disinformation to influence voters and direct attempts to hack into parts of the election machinery, such as voter databases.
Officials said that they are seeing more of the former than the latter in the run-up to the midterms. They also stressed that the 2020 presidential election could be vulnerable to meddling. –