Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections

Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections has become a question of concern at the highest level of national security as well as in the computer and social media industries.[1][2] In February 2020, the American intelligence community advised members of Congress that Russia was attempting to interfere in the 2020 election.

Reports of attempted interference

In response to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, special counsel Robert Mueller conducted a two-year-long investigation. The resulting report concluded that Russia interfered in “sweeping and systematic fashion”.[3] In his July 2019 Congressional testimony, Mueller stated that the Russians continue to interfere in U.S. elections "as we sit here”, and that "many more countries" have developed disinformation campaigns targeting U.S. elections, based partly on the Russian model.[4][5]

Also in July 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the first volume of a bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, a report that included recommendations for securing the 2020 elections.[6][7] The second volume of that report noted, based on social-media data from October 2018, that "Russian disinformation efforts may be focused on gathering information and data points in support of an active measures campaign targeted at the 2020 U.S. presidential election."[8]

U.S. officials have accused Russia, China and Iran of trying to influence the 2020 elections.[9][10][11][12] Between January and late July 2017, Twitter identified and shut down over 7,000 phony accounts created by Iranian influence operations.[13] According to Christopher A. Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Russia is attempting to interfere with the 2020 United States elections.[14][15][16] Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in July 2019, Wray stated, "We are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020."[17] Dan Coats, the former Director of National Intelligence, believes that Russia and China will both attempt to influence the elections.[18][19]

Various disinformation campaigns on social media have targeted the Democratic Party candidates running in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.[20] This has prompted considerable concern regarding the ability of social media companies to cope with disinformation and manipulation.[21][22] By August 2019, Facebook and Twitter had banned advertisements that use misinformation to attempt the suppression of voter turnout.[23]

Microsoft developed an open source software called ElectionGuard to help safeguard the 2020 elections.[24] In mid-July 2019, Microsoft announced that it had, over the prior year, "notified nearly 10,000 customers they've been targeted or compromised by nation-state attacks". Based on attacks that had targeted political organizations, and on experience from 2016 and 2018, Microsoft anticipated "attacks targeting U.S. election systems, political campaigns or NGOs that work closely with campaigns".[25] Of the "nation-state attacks" that had originated from Russia, Microsoft claimed that they followed the "same pattern of engagement" as Russian operations in 2016 and 2018.[26] On September 20, 2019, Microsoft announced that it would provide free security updates for Windows 7, which reached its end-of-life on January 14, 2020, on federally-certified voting machines through the 2020 United States elections.[27] On October 4, 2019, Microsoft announced that "Phosphorus", a group of hackers linked to the Iranian government, had attempted to compromise e-mail accounts belonging to journalists, prominent Iranian expatriates, U.S. government officials and the campaign of a U.S. presidential candidate.[28][29] While Microsoft did not disclose which campaign had been the target of the cyber attack, unnamed sources informed Reuters that it had been that of Donald Trump.[30]

On October 21, 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company has detected a "highly sophisticated" set of campaigns to interfere with the 2020 elections. These campaigns originated from Russia and from Iran.[31] Fake accounts based in Russia posed as Americans of varied political backgrounds and worked to undermine the campaign of Joe Biden, aiming to sow discontent with Biden from both the left and the right.[32]

A September 2019 report from The Washington Post demonstrated that due to bad default passwords and weak encryption, hackers with physical access can easily get into voting machines designed for use in the 2020 United States elections, and remote hacking was possible if the machines were accidentally misconfigured.[33]

On February 13, 2020, American intelligence officials advised members of the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to get Trump re-elected.[34] The briefing was delivered by Shelby Pierson, the intelligence community's top election security official and an aide to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Trump allies on the committee challenged the findings, and Trump was angered to learn of the briefing as he believed Democrats might "weaponize" the information against him. He chastised Maguire for allowing the briefing to occur, and days later he appointed Richard Grenell to replace Maguire.[35][36][37]

On February 21, 2020, The Washington Post reported that, according to unnamed US officials, Russia was interfering in the Democratic primary in an effort to support the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders issued a statement after the news report, saying in part, "I don't care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do."[38] Sanders acknowledged that his campaign was briefed about Russia's alleged efforts about a month prior.[39] Sanders suggested that Russians were impersonating people claiming to be his supporters online in order to create an atmosphere of toxicity and give "Bernie Bros" a bad reputation, a suggestion that Twitter rejected.[40][41] According to election-security expert Laura Rosenberger, "Russian attempts to sow discord in the Democratic primary would be consistent with its strategy of undermining Americans' faith in democratic institutions and processes."[38]

In March 2020, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Brennan Center for Justice published a report indicating that Russia-linked social media accounts have been spreading Instagram posts calculated to sow division among American voters.[42][43] According to the report, Russian operatives were increasingly impersonating real political candidates and groups rather than creating fictional groups.[43] According to Twitter's head of site integrity, Russian agents also attempted in 2018 to create the impression of more election interference than is actually happening to undermine confidence in the process.[44] Shortly thereafter, the New York Times reported that according to American intelligence officials Russian operatives have been stoking via private Facebook groups anger among African Americans, emphasizing allegations of police brutality in the United States, highlighting racism in the United States against African Americans, and promoting and pressuring hate groups, including white and black extremist groups, in order to create strife within American society, though American intelligence officials provided few details about the alleged operations.[45] A CNN investigation found that Russian efforts had partly been outsourced to troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria.[46]

Government reaction

Dan Coats appointed Shelby Pierson as the U.S. election security czar in July 2019, creating a new position in a move seen as an acknowledgment that foreign influence operations against U.S. elections will be ongoing indefinitely.[47][48] Election-security task forces established before the 2018 midterm elections at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command have been expanded and "made permanent".[15] The Department of Homeland Security indicated that the threat of ransomware attacks upon voter registration databases was a particular concern.[49]

Prior to resigning as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen attempted to organize a meeting of the U.S. Cabinet to discuss how to address potential foreign interference in the 2020 elections. Mick Mulvaney, the White House Chief of Staff, reportedly warned her to keep the subject away from Trump, who views the discussion as questioning the legitimacy of his victory in 2016.[50] Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has blocked various bills intended to improve election security from being considered,[51][52][53] including some measures that have had bipartisan support.[54][55] Election-security legislation remains stalled in the Senate as of February 2020.[56] However, various states have implemented changes, such as paper ballots.[57] Florida has expanded its paper-ballot backup system since 2016, but experts warn that its voting systems are still vulnerable to manipulation, a particular concern being the electronic poll books that store lists of registered voters.[58] All 67 election supervisors in Florida have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, and consequently, information such as the identity of which four counties had been hacked by Russian intelligence in 2016 remains unknown to the public.[59] Democratic members of Congress cited the lack of effort to secure U.S. elections against foreign interference, particularly from Russia, as among grounds to begin an impeachment inquiry.[60]

On September 30, 2019, the United States issued economic sanctions against seven Russians affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, an organization that manipulates social media for misinformation purposes. The sanctions were described as a warning against foreign interference in United States elections.[61]

On December 9, 2019, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told ABC News: "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."[62] According to William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Russia is "using social media and many other tools to inflame social divisions, promote conspiracy theories and sow distrust in our democracy and elections."[63]

Bloomberg News reported in January 2020 that American intelligence and law enforcement were examining whether Russia was involved in promoting disinformation to undermine Joe Biden as part of a campaign to disrupt the 2020 election.[63] The following month, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service warned that Russia would attempt to interfere in the Georgian parliamentary election in October 2020 as well as the US election in November.[64]

Trump administration reaction

The Trump administration reacted to the briefing by American intelligence officials to the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to get Trump re-elected[35][36][37] by rejecting the efforts were in favor of Trump[65] and by firing Joseph Maguire, who was involved in those reports.[35][36][37]

By contrast, Trump and his national security adviser Robert O'Brien[66] accepted reports the Russians were supporting the nomination of Bernie Sanders.[67][38]

Three weeks after Trump loyalist Richard Grenell was appointed acting Director of National Intelligence, intelligence officials briefed members of Congress behind closed doors that they had "not concluded that the Kremlin is directly aiding any candidate’s re-election or any other candidates’ election," which differed from testimony they had provided the previous month indicating that Russia was working to aid Trump's candidacy. Two intelligence officials pushed back on suggestions the new testimony was politically motivated. One intelligence official asserted the earlier testimony had overreached and that Democrats had mischaracterized it. Kash Patel, a former aide to congressman Devin Nunes who joined Grenell at the ODNI, imposed limits on what intelligence officials could tell Congress about foreign influence operations. The briefers reportedly did not intend to contradict their previous testimony, though they avoided repeating it.[68][69]

Presidency of Donald Trump

In a June 2019 interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Donald Trump said that he would accept information from other nations about his opponents in the 2020 United States presidential election.[70][71]

According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani repeatedly pressed the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, leading to the ongoing Trump–Ukraine scandal.[72][73][74] Biden is a potentially strong Trump challenger in the 2020 presidential election.[75][76] The purpose of the requested investigation was alleged to be to damage Biden's election campaign for president.[77][78] Reports suggested that Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless they investigate Biden.[78][79] The controversy triggered the commencement of the formal process of impeachment inquiries against Trump on September 24, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi directing six House committee chairmen to proceed "under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry".[80]

On October 3, 2019, Trump said that "China should start an investigation" into presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Moments before, while discussing negotiations on a possible agreement in the ongoing China–United States trade war, he said that "if they [China] don't do what we want, we have tremendous power." Chair of the Federal Election Commission Ellen Weintraub then retweeted a June statement explaining that "it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election".[81]

As of early October 2019, there is evidence President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, as well as Trump's personal attorney Giuliani have solicited help from Ukraine and China for assistance in discrediting Trump's political opponents.[82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90] Trump also dispatched Barr to meet with Italian officials as part of Trump's efforts to discredit the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.[91] Trump also pressed Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia to give Barr information that Trump hoped would discredit the Mueller inquiry, in a call that (like Trump's earlier call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky), used diplomatic contacts to advance Trump's "personal political interests."[92] According to a report in the Times of London, Trump also personally contacted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to seek help to discredit the Mueller investigation.[93]

See also

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