National Intelligence Says Iran And Russia Have Interfered With Election

Here we go again. According to John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence, it’s been discovered that Iran and Russia have interfered with the upcoming election.

CNN reports that both countries have interfered with US voter registration information to obstruct the November election and Iran has been accused of imitating the white supremacy group “The Proud Boys” to send out threatening emails to voters.

“This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,” Ratcliffe stated.

“We have already seen Iran sending spoof emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President (Donald) Trump,” Ratcliffe added. “You may have seen some reporting on this in the last 24 hours, or you may have even been one of the recipients of those emails.”

Ratcliffe a former Republican Congressman needs to explain the portion of his email where he says the emails were intended to damage Trump, he’s already been accused by Democrats and a select group of former intelligence officials of being selective on what information he chooses to declassify before the November election, in attempt to help Trump.

Following the news conference, democrats presiding on the Homeland Security Committee condemned him. “DO NOT listen to Ratcliffe. Partisan hack,” its Twitter account tweeted Wednesday evening, although it has since been deleted. The committee then followed up with, “TO CLARIFY: These election interference operations are clearly not meant to harm President Trump.”

People like Representative and Democrat of California said Ratcliffe attempted to “change the subject” but Chuck Schumer who is the Minority Leader and New York Democrat gave a more profound critique. “I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure. And I’m surprised that DNI Ratcliffe said that at his press conference if he did.”
“He has directed the FBI, DOJ, and defense and intel agencies to proactively monitor and thwart any attempts to interfere in US elections, and because of the great work of our law enforcement agencies we have stopped an attempt by America’s adversaries to undermine our elections,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said, believing that the news conference was a way of Trump putting “America first.”

Bill Evanina is a top election security official and stated, “The intelligence community has assessed Iran’s intentions are consistent with Bill Evanina’s previous statements on this matter and tonight’s announcement was made with specific regard to its current activities.” He had previously revealed late this summer that Russia, Iran and China were planning on interfering with this year’s election.

Iran was also accused of sending out disinformation regarding voter fraud by sending out emails that included a video link on the issue. “Sad but true, bad actors continue their attempts to undermine confidence in the election, now with a misleading video,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs said via Twitter. This disinformation echo’s Trump’s own sentiments about “voter fraud” amid the upcoming election, despite the fact that his claims are meritless.

“The Iranians are following US politics closely and understand the background of the Proud Boys recently coming up in the presidential debate and know that sending the emails they did would cause blowback in the media that would be damaging to Trump because of these perceived violent Trump supporters threatening Democrats,” the official added, indicating Trump’s statement last month to The Proud Boys; “stand back and stand by.”

But as for Iran, they say they’re not a part of the scheme, and accused Trump of acting in desperate measures to take away the faith Americans have in its election integrity. “Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other country’s elections. The world has been witnessing U.S.’ own desperate public attempts to question the outcome of its own election at the highest level,” Alireza Miryousefi, the press officer for Iran’s mission to the UN, tweeted.

Iran was accused after it was found that Iranians got hold of data collected by a vendor and state systems, Russia is also accused of gaining access to this data, but it’s unknown what they plan to do with it.

As for now, Ratcliffe says, “We are prepared for the possibility of actions by those hostile to democracy.” And says the announcement is needed to make those aware of the situation with hopes that voters will stay vigilant.