U.S. intelligence: Russia continues interfering to help Trump

WASHINGTON >> Russia is using a range of techniques to denigrate Joe Biden, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday in their first public assessment that Moscow continues to try to interfere in the 2020 campaign to help President Donald Trump.

At the same time, the officials said China preferred that Trump be defeated in November and was weighing whether to take more aggressive action in the election.

Those conclusions were included in a statement released by William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

But officials briefed on the intelligence said that Russia was the far graver, and more immediate, threat. While China seeks to gain influence in American politics, its leaders have not yet decided to wade directly into the presidential contest, however much they may dislike Trump, the officials said.

The assessment by Evanina suggested the intelligence community was treading carefully, reflecting the political heat generated by previous findings: The White House has objected to conclusions that Moscow is working to help Trump, and Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed concern that the intelligence agencies are not being forthright enough about Russia’s preference for him and that the agencies are introducing China’s anti-Trump stance to balance the scales.

The assessment appeared to draw a distinction between what it called the “range of measures” being deployed by Moscow to influence the election and its conclusion that China prefers that Trump be defeated.

It cited efforts coming out of pro-Russia forces in Ukraine to damage Biden and Kremlin-linked figures who “are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”

China, it said, has so far signaled its position mostly through increased public criticism of the administration’s tough line on China on a variety of fronts.

It is not clear how much China is doing to interfere directly in the presidential election. Intelligence officials have briefed Congress in recent days that much of Beijing’s focus is on state and local races. But Evanina’s statement Friday suggested China was weighing an increased effort.

“Although China will continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action, its public rhetoric over the past few months has grown increasingly critical of the current administration’s COVID-19 response, closure of China’s Houston consulate and actions on other issues,” Evanina said.