The U.S. Intelligence Community Foreign Malign Influence Center hosted an update briefing by the U.S. Government Inter-Agency Task Force on Foreign Interference in the American Elections on October 22, 2024.
Multiple representatives from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Homeland Security participated. Even the U.S. Coast Guard attended.
The formal statement released after the session with more than 40 media representatives stated, “Foreign actors—particularly Russia, Iran, and China—remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests, even as their tactics continue to evolve.
The IC expects foreign influence efforts will intensify in the lead-up to Election Day, especially through social media posts—some of which are likely to be AI-generated or -enhanced.”
The ODNI led team seemed to parse the foreign threat into two categories. Pre-election social media efforts and post-election attempts to stoke discord and violence.
But when it comes to actual foreign interference in the conduct of the election process and manipulation of vote numbers (the IC calls this the “election administration process”), there was a hubris they may regret.
The ODNI inter-agency team said, “To date, though, the IC has no information that any foreign actor intends to compromise the integrity of the election administration process. The IC will provide updates if it acquires such information.
Even if they decided to try, foreign actors almost certainly would not be able to manipulate election processes at a scale that would materially impact the outcome of the Presidential election without detection.”
Three days later, the Inter-Agency Team had “election administration process” egg all over their face. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese had “burrowed into the networks of U.S. telecommunications firms … to target the phones of former President Donald Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and people affiliated with Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.”
The U.S. taxpayers are spending over $100 billion in 2024 and the Chinese blow through the U.S. IC screen line.
If the Chinese can hack the phone of President Trump, they can hack the election infrastructure. Does this hack mean that the Chinese are sharing the intelligence they collect on President Trump’s location with Iran? Highly likely.
90% of the oral question and answers during the October 22 update briefing by the ODNI were focused on Russia. There is clearly a hyper focus on Russia by the American IC and by legacy media.
Russia is definitely a part of the Chinese led team to topple America, but for every $1 Russia spends on influence operations, Iran spends $3 (mostly borrowed from China), and China spends $20.
It’s not even close, Russia is a minor player in the big picture. Intel rule number one is you’re likely not going to find something you’re not looking for. The issue with the IC is the prioritization of the collection effort dictated through Intelligence Community Directive ICD 204.
Russia seems to have a much higher place in the collection stack, Iran and China’s at best may straddle the Intel Collection cut line. More resources and attention are focused on Russia, less on Iran and China, which explains the perversion of the IC.
I asked some detailed questions on China and Iran. Iran has been assessed in multiple reports to be a proxy of China. Iran has long been assessed as a cyber actor with strong capabilities and capacity.
Iran has also been assessed as having assassins that are seeking to kill Former President Trump and members of his administration. If Iran is a proxy of China – why is China not assessed as interfering in the U.S. Elections.
The reply to my question was warmed over word salad. The ODNI said, “Various foreign influence actors — Russia, Iran, China — address similar themes, but we haven’t seen collaboration on those activities.”
This IC assessment flies in the face of the reality of the Chinese-Russian “No Limits” partnership to topple American world leadership. The IC is not going to find collaboration if they are continuing the Biden policy of not looking for it.
The second action of the 2nd Trump Term should be to re-order the Intelligence Collection Stack to put first things first. The priority should be China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela in that order.
That’s right after the first action of firing Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and placing him under investigation. The IC Careerists should also be reminded they are Excepted Service Employees and that any evidence of political mischievousness like the infamous Eric Ciaramella nee CIA, now Carnegie Foundation, will be grounds for dismissal.
The Department of Justice should be turned upside down to identify all those who felt it was a crime for Virginia Governor Youngkin to enforce 18USC611, a Federal Law which makes it unequivocally clear that only US Citizens can vote in Federal Elections.
The ODNI needs to explain why the DNI did not consider foreign citizens voting in American elections as a foreign threat to the election process?
For those in the IC who did little but cheerlead the Chinese/Iranian assassination plot against President Trump, there also needs to be absolute accountability in addition to finding the IC J6 plotters.
Right after that, we need complete transparency on the role of the CIA in interfering in the elections of other countries, staring with Israel and Brazil.
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