Iran is working to stoke societal discord in the United States and undermine Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House — as it tried to do four years ago, U.S. intelligence officials signaled Monday in a new assessment of the disinformation landscape ahead of November’s election.
Like others who participated in the briefing, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the intelligence agencies.
Officials also noted that the U.S. government has not detected any foreign hacking, meddling or tampering with election machines and websites, though officials have seen efforts to “scan” such networks.
Russia remains a “prominent threat” to U.S. elections, the senior ODNI official said, noting Moscow’s “core interest” is “opposing candidates who want to offer further aid to Kyiv” as Ukraine continues to resist Russia in the almost-2½-year-old war. That had been President Biden until he dropped out of the race last week and endorsed Vice President Harris, who is the likely Democratic nominee.
The Kremlin is using primarily Russia-based commercial firms to aid its influence operations by creating fake websites designed to impersonate U.S. government and media organizations, the official said, noting that two such firms have already been sanctioned for their activities.
The official could not say how effective these operations by Russia and Iran have been at shaping American attitudes and behavior or fomenting discord, in part because it would entail assessing American public opinion. The intelligence community is charged with monitoring and assessing the capabilities and actions of foreign actors, but not U.S. political processes or public opinion.
China probably does not plan to influence the presidential election, the official said, though U.S. spy agencies are monitoring the possibility that pro-Beijing actors might seek to denigrate down-ballot candidates as they did in a handful of midterm races in 2022.
President Xi Jinping pledged to Biden at a summit in San Francisco in November that Beijing would not interfere in the election. “China’s being more cautious and we anticipate that they’re concerned about getting caught if they’re meddling in the election and they do not want to risk further damaging the bilateral relationship,” the official said.
Iran relies on a vast web of online personas and propaganda mills to spread disinformation, and has notably been active and exacerbating tensions with Israel over the Gaza conflict, the official said.
Some of Iran’s primary influence operatives work under its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization with intelligence and cyber personnel, which has a direct line to the country’s supreme leader, the official noted.
Given the recent Biden decision to exit the race, “it’s pretty early” to assess whether Iran will actively seek to promote Trump’s eventual opponent, the official said. In 2020, Tehran sought to undercut Trump’s reelection prospects, but did not appear to be actively promoting any rivals, the intelligence community concluded in a post-election assessment.
“It’s also important to stress that most activity we’re observing from Iran’s influence actors remains focused on stoking chaos and divisions,” he said.
In an election threat briefing earlier this month, ODNI officials said Tehran had sought to take advantage of ongoing protests over the war in Gaza. “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in a statement.
On Monday, the ODNI official said the intelligence community has “no further information” to suggest that Iran was “trying to engage or support the protesters.”
