A US intelligence report likely to release on Tuesday will disclose that Russia and Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 US election, Reuters reported.
Russia and Iran tried to interfere with the 2020 election
The report provided no proof that the votes were changed through technical methods. It also dismissed baseless claims regarding conspiracies propagated by former President Donald Trump and his companions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin approved “influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US,” the report said.
While Iran “carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects—though without directly promoting his rivals—undermine public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the US,” according to the report.
Tehran and Moscow had previously refused their participation trying to affect U.S. elections.
But intelligence experts also learned that China did not utilize operations to influence the results of the Trump-Biden election.
The highly confidential assessments from the U.S. intelligence community published in a declassified report through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, FBI, and CISA carried out the investigation.
Russia biggest threat to U.S. elections
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. insisted the report suggests Russia is the biggest threat to U.S. elections.
Schiff said that China and Iran also carried out certain measures related to U.S. elections. But they were less significant than those taken by Russia.
According to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., while the U.S. has beefed up its defenses against foreign intervention, “the problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away and, given the current partisan divides in this country, may find fertile ground in which to grow in the future.”
The U.S. intelligence agencies figured out other ways to influence voters with information from Cuba, Venezuela, and Lebanese Hezbollah. But the penetration of some local government systems did not affect the election results.
