Trump official interfered in report on Russian election meddling – watchdog
Chad Wolf, Donald Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, interfered with a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election by demanding changes, delaying its dissemination and creating a risk the report might be seen as politicised, a government watchdog said.
Eventually declassified in March 2021, the report was a summary of foreign election interference into the 2020 election. It found that, as one headline put it, “Russia tried to help Trump in 2020, Iran tried to hurt him and China stayed out of it”.
But before it was released, and two months before the election, an analyst in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) complained that Wolf, as well as his predecessor Kirstjen Nielsen and the deputy secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, had interfered with the report.
According to the whistleblower, in mid-May 2020 Wolf instructed him “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran”.
The analyst also said that in July 2020 he was ordered to delay the report because it “made the president look bad”.
At the time, a DHS spokesman “flatly denied” the claim.
On Tuesday, the office of the DHS inspector general released its own report. It found that DHS “did not adequately follow its internal processes and comply with applicable intelligence community policy standards and requirements when editing and disseminating an Office of Intelligence and Analysis [I&A] intelligence product regarding Russian interference in the 2020 US presidential election”.
DHS employees, it said, “changed the product’s scope by making changes that appear to be based in part on political considerations”.
Such changes, the report said, included the insertion of a “tone box” about China and Iran.
“Additionally, the acting secretary [Wolf] participated in the review process multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product, resulting in the delay of its dissemination on at least one occasion.
“The delays and deviation from I&A’s standard process and requirements [risked] creating a perception of politicisation. This conclusion is supported by I&A’s own tradecraft assessment, which determined that the product might be viewed as politicised.”
Wolf is now head of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump thinktank. He told NBC News the watchdog “did not find any credible evidence that I directed anyone to change the substance of the report because it ‘made President Trump look bad’”.
He also said it was “buried in the report … that the grossly false whistleblower complaint against me was withdrawn”.
The withdrawal, “pursuant to an agreement with DHS”, is dealt with on page nine of 42 in the watchdog report.
On page 11, the watchdog says: “Based on our interviews with relevant officials, as well as our document review, it is clear the acting secretary asked the acting USIA [under secretary for intelligence and analysis] to hold the product from its pending release.
“We interviewed the acting USIA, who told us the acting secretary asked the product be held because it made President Trump look bad and hurt President Trump’s campaign – the concept that Russia was denigrating candidate Biden would be used against President Trump.
“The acting USIA also told us he took contemporaneous notes of the meeting, a copy of which we obtained. The notes … read ‘AS1 – will hurt POTUS – kill it per his authorities’.
“The acting USIA told us these notes meant that the acting secretary told him to hold the product because it would hurt President Trump.”
The watchdog said Wolf and others denied that.
Its report also included a 7 July email telling the acting USIA to “hold on sending this one out until you have a chance to speak to” Wolf. The watchdog said Wolf told it he wanted the delay because the report was poorly written.
According to the watchdog, dissemination of the report was delayed again in August.