In latest check-in, spy agencies describe ‘ramp up’ in election influence

U.S. intelligence agencies on Friday said they are observing foreign actors “ramp up” their efforts to influence the 2024 presidential election.

“As you can imagine, the closer we get to Election Day, we see more activity by foreign actors,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said during a press briefing, the third the clandestine community had held this election cycle.

“These activities, we anticipate … will continue to occur as we get closer to the election,” the official said during the call, the third such session the clandestine community has held this election cycle. It coincided with the release of an updated election security assessment.

The prediction was made days after the federal government disclosed a series of actions meant to stymy Russia’s attempts to feed disinformation to American voters. The Justice Department announced the seizure of more than 30 internet domains it said Moscow was directing to pump out pro-Kremlin propaganda. 

The department also announced charges against two Russian nationals employed at the Russian state-media organization RT.

The crackdown comes weeks after U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies publicly blamed Iran for hacking former president Donald Trump’s campaign and targeting the Biden-Harris campaign.

In both instances, officials said it was too early to tell if the public pronouncements would be enough to ultimately dissuade Russia and Iran from further attempts to undermine the electoral process with just 60 days before voters head to the polls.

For Moscow in particular, the ODNI official noted that even after this week’s actions “Russia’s influence apparatus is very large and it’s worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active and the U.S. government’s efforts are part of a broader effort to counter Russia’s activities.”

On Iran, an FBI official similarly told reporters they would be “hesitant to ever declare” that Tehran’s hack-and-leak ploys were over “because typically those operations are indicative of the broader intent for the respective foreign adversary.”

China, meanwhile, continues to sit out the presidential race and instead remains focused on down-ballot contests as a way to potentially counter lower-level policymakers who hold an anti-Beijing bias.

U.S. spy agencies are also seeing a “number of countries considering activities that a minimum test the boundaries of election influence,” according to the ONDI official, including lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event that they are elected to office.

Officials declined to name specific countries, but noted they had cited some, like Cuba, in the past.