RUSSIA tried to interfere with the 2020 election by pushing misinformation on Joe Biden to help Donald Trump win, according to intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the declassified report on foreign threats on Tuesday.
The document said that Russia made efforts 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."
"Unlike in 2016, we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure," the report added.
It went on to state that there are "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."
It also insisted that President Putin "had purview over the activities of Adriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who played a prominent role in Russia’s election influence activities."
Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and a 1993 graduate of a Russian spy academy, has aired corruption allegations against Biden and his son, Hunter.
Last year, Derkach released this year what he said were recordings of conversation between former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Biden when Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.
That effort was flagged in a US intelligence assessment back in August that warned of Russian interference in the upcoming election, and specifically efforts to denigrate Biden.
However, officials found no evidence that foreign actors changed votes or otherwise disrupted the voting process in last November's presidential election.
Tuesday's document echoes what the Department of Homeland Security's cyber department determined the day after the election.
"Over the last four years, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been a part of a whole-of-nation effort to ensure American voters decide American elections," CISA said at the time.
"Importantly, after millions of Americans voted, we have no evidence any foreign adversary was capable of preventing Americans from voting or changing vote tallies."
Aside from Russia, the newest report showed that Iran, for its part, conducted a covert influence campaign aimed at undermining Trump’s reelection prospects.
However, China did not meddle on either side in a likely reflection of its desire for a stable relationship with the US.
More to follow…
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