Several Countries Are Interferring With U.S. Elections— As Always Israel Gets A Pass From The Media

If National Security rings your bell, one of the best ways to start the day is by reading Fordham University’s Center on National Security Morning Brief. This morning their lead story was how intelligence officials claim Russia, Iran and China are seeking to shape the U.S. election. I’ll get into it in a second, but it’s historically accurate to say that all through history, foreign governments have been interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. In recent times, no country has been more guilty of that that the U.S. Just in our own lifetimes, the U.S. has ruthlessly sought to insert itself into the government makeup of Greece (1947), Italy (1948), Japan (1950s), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Vietnam (1950s onward), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1980s), Honduras (1980s)… and Cuba, right from the very beginning. Not to mention Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Haiti, China, Russia, every country in Latin America…

The U.S. has been both a target and a perpetrator. During the 1796 election, the French government, unhappy with John Adams’ pro-British Federalist policies, attempted to influence the outcome in favor of Thomas Jefferson, who was seen as more sympathetic to France. French minister Pierre Adet distributed propaganda and attempted to sway public opinion and voters. The British were doing the same thing on behalf of the Federalists right into the early 19th Century. More recently, how do you define the Cold War and ignore this topic? More recently, using illicit funding, China tried helping Bill Clinton in 1996 and Russia helped Trump in 2016.

And has any country interfered more overtly and more brazenly in U.S. domestic politics than Israel— through AIPAC and nefarious dual nationals like Miriam Adelson (for Republicans) and Haim Saban (for conservative Democrats) and with an uninterrupted series of Israeli intelligence operations? Other big players in the field recently have been Saudi Arabia (including with very significant financial contributions to partisan think tanks as well as with illegal political campaign contributions), Turkey, Qatar, the UAE…

Today’s Center on National Security Morning Brief noted that “Russia, Iran and China are all recruiting Americans to spread propaganda advancing their interests ahead of the U.S. presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials said Monday. Some U.S. citizens have been knowingly helping foreign governments ‘seed, promote, and add credibility to narratives that serve the foreign actors’ interests,’ the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said Monday in its updated intelligence assessment on election security. Others in the U.S. have been tricked into aiding the foreign actors, according to the report. Although intelligence officials did not invoke the names of U.S. presidential candidates, their comments Monday in a briefing for reporters organized by the ODNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security made clear that they believe Russia is trying to help Republican nominee Donald Trump while Iran is seeking to undermine his candidacy.”

Russian operatives, in particular, have undertaken efforts to build and use networks of U.S. and Western “personalities” to create and disseminate Russian-friendly narratives,” according to the ODNI report. “These actors are seeking to back a presidential candidate in addition to influencing congressional electoral outcomes, undermine public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbate sociopolitical division,” the intelligence office said. U.S. intelligence agencies previously found that Russia sought to bolster Trump in 2016 and 2020. The accusations are “absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters today. “We absolutely reject them.”

The U.S. officials said Iran is seeking to harm Trump’s presidential campaign in covert online influence operations, fearing a return to power by the Republican nominee would inflame relations with Washington. U.S. spy agencies have “observed Tehran working to influence the presidential election, probably because Iranian leaders want to avoid” increased tensions with the U.S., a senior ODNI official said. The officials stopped short of asserting directly that Tehran was seeking to undermine Trump, but said that its current operations aligned with its goals before the 2020 election, when it sought to harm Trump’s candidacy.“Iran does not engage in any objectives or activities intended to influence the U.S. election,” a representative of Iran’s Mission to the UN said in a written statement Monday. “A significant portion of such accusations are characterized by psychological operations designed to artificially pep up election campaigns,” the statement added. 

Regarding China, the U.S. officials said Beijing “probably does not plan to influence the outcome” of the U.S. presidential election, but U.S. intelligence is monitoring the possibility that China-linked propagandists and influence actors could “denigrate down-ballot candidates.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing that his nation “has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the United States.” U.S. officials also noted that the U.S. government has not detected any foreign hacking, interference, or tampering with election machines and websites, though officials have seen efforts to “scan” such networks.