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Washington: Newly declassified records released by the Trump administration reveal internal disagreements within the US intelligence community over how to assess and report allegations of Chinese efforts to influence the 2020 presidential election.
The documents include internal FBI emails, intelligence assessments and inter-agency correspondence that reveal officials disputed both the strength of available intelligence and how it should be presented to policymakers during the election year.
One set of records shows the FBI recalled an intelligence report shortly after it had been circulated, triggering weeks of internal debate over its sourcing, credibility and whether additional investigation was needed before the information could be shared more widely.
The correspondence also shows differing views among intelligence officials over China’s intentions towards the 2020 election.
An August 2020 National Intelligence Council assessment concluded that Beijing preferred President Donald Trump to lose re-election but judged that China was reluctant to undertake a large-scale covert campaign because of the risk that such efforts could backfire. The assessment nevertheless said China had stepped up public criticism of the Trump administration, expanded online influence activity and collected information on US public officials.
Separate internal correspondence released this week shows some senior election analysts believed existing intelligence understated China’s activities.
In an October 2020 email, the Director for Election Threat Analysis at the National Intelligence Council informed intelligence agencies that he and the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber held “a somewhat different take on the China/election story” from the broader intelligence community and planned to publish an “alternative analysis” setting out their views. The email said they believed Beijing had taken “some low-level, exploratory steps to denigrate the President and shape voter perceptions ahead of the election.”
President Trump cited the documents in a White House address announcing the declassification, arguing that intelligence concerning China’s election-related activities had been suppressed within sections of the government. He directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how the intelligence had been handled.
The documents provide an unusually detailed account of how intelligence agencies debated the credibility, sourcing and dissemination of politically sensitive reporting during the 2020 election.
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–IANS
