US intelligence says Russia boosted Trump, put down Biden in ’20 election
WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized and Russian entities carried out influence operations last year aimed at denigrating then-candidate Joe Biden and boosting former President Donald Trump’s candidacy during the 2020 election, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report made public Tuesday.
However, the report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, concluded that no foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process, such as voter registration, casting of ballots, tabulation or reporting.
The report is an unclassified version of a classified document sent to Trump, top U.S. officials and senior lawmakers on Jan. 7, according to the ODNI.
The report reaffirms the conclusion reached by Christopher Krebs, the former head
of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired by Trump after saying that the 2020 election was the “most secure in American history.”
“We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections by altering any technical aspect of the voting process,” the report said. Unlike 2016, “we did not see persistent Russian
cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure,” the report said. “We have high confidence in our assessment.”
However, the report laid out in stark terms a wideranging influence effort authorized by Putin aimed at knocking down Biden, the Democratic Party and overall confidence in the U.S. electoral process. In 2016, in addition to influence operations,
Russian intelligence agencies launched a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee and stole internal documents as well as attempted to gain access to election systems in dozens of states.
In contrast, Moscow’s strategy “this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives — including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden — to U.S. media organizations, U.S. officials, and prominent U.S. individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration.”
Trump and many of his close associates repeatedly pushed unproven allegations that Biden and his son Hunter were involved in a corrupt scheme in Ukraine.
“We assess that President Putin and other senior Russian officials were aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations against the 2020 U.S. Presidential election,” the report said.