Russia Tried to ‘Launder Influence Narratives’ Through People in Trump’s Inner Circle, U.S. Intel Report Finds
A newly-released U.S. intel report found that Russia tried to influence the 2020 election elections, with the goal of “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 [PDF] detailed influence campaigns by Russia and Iran, and said China took steps to “try to undermine former President Trump’s reelection” but “did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.”
It says that “Russian influence agents” spread “unsubstantiated or misleading claims about President Biden and his family’s alleged wrongdoing related to Ukraine” and that “Russian state media, trolls, and online proxies engaged in activities targeting the 2020 US presidential election.”
The report also includes this detail:
A key element of Moscow’s strategy this election cycle was its use of people linked to Russian intelligence to launder influence narratives including — misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden — through US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, some of whom were close to former President Trump and his administration.
No one in particular is named, but the Washington Post’s report said it’s potentially a reference to Rudy Giuliani:
The intelligence community, for instance, assessed that Putin “had purview over” the activities of Ukrainian lawmaker Andrei Derkach, who played a prominent role in advancing the misleading narrative alleging corruption between Biden and Ukraine. Giuliani met with Derkach, who the United States has sanctioned as a Russian agent, in Ukraine and in the United States in 2019 and 2020 as Giuliani sought to release material that he thought would damage Biden. Last year Derkach disclosed edited audio snippets of conversations Biden had as vice president with Ukrainian officials in a clumsy attempt to cast aspersions on him
The intel report says at the start, “We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.”
