FBI chief: Russians trying to ‘denigrate’ Biden in ’20 election

WASHINGTON — FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on Thursday that Russia is still working to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Election year politics were front and center at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on threats to the country, as lawmakers pressed Wray to weigh in on a variety of issues where politics, ex- tremism and violence overlap.

“The intelligence community consensus is that Russia continues to try to influence our elections,” Wray said. Unlike in 2016, when the most serious interference efforts involved hacking Democrats’ emails and state election systems, Wray said Russian activity so far this year seems more limited to misinformation campaigns.

“We certainly have seen very active efforts by the Russians to influence our elections in 2020,” he said, citing the use of social media, state media and other types of propaganda.

The Russians are trying “to denigrate Vice President Biden and what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment,” Wray said. He said the FBI recently alerted Facebook and Twitter to fake accounts that traced back to Russia, and that the companies then took down those profiles.

Wray argued that in the battle against political misinformation, it’s important to act quickly before fake social media campaigns or accounts get big — because knocking down false accounts early, before they acquire too many followers, greatly diminishes their effectiveness.

But the FBI director also warned that too much focus on disinformation could be debilitating, causing Americans to distrust the democratic process itself.

“In many ways what concerns me most is the steady drumbeat and misinformation” that could lead to “a lack of confidence of American voters and citizens in the validity of their vote,” Wray said.

The danger, he added, lies in the “level of noise” becoming so great that a sense of futility sets in among some Americans.

“I think that would be a perception, not a reality. I think Americans can and should have confidence in our election system and our democracy,” he said.”

Republicans and Democrats on the committee pressed Wray to say whether rightwing extremists or left-wing extremists pose a more serious threat of violence to the country, but Wray avoided making such a judgment, saying the FBI does not look at political ideology but whether individuals are planning violence.

Asked about President Donald Trump’s repeated denunciations of antifa, Wray said it’s “a real thing. It’s not a group or an organization — it’s a movement or an ideology,” adding that the FBI is investigating individuals who support the antifa movement and may be planning to engage in violence. He said he was concerned about small local “nodes” of such individuals who may be building toward violence.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, told Wray those comments downplay the seriousness of the threat posed by antifa. Wray replied that he takes the issue of anti-government violence seriously.

The FBI director also discussed a different online movement linked to violence, called boogaloo, that has often been categorized as a form of rightwing extremism, but Wray cautioned lawmakers that boogaloo so far appears to have murky motivations that aren’t easily categorized.

“Their main focus is just dismantling, tearing down the government,” and it’s not clear that their adherents have any clear goal beyond that, said the director.

Wray also said he was alarmed about a recent rise in violence against police officers emerging from the protests, adding, “it breaks my heart.”