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Senator Ron Johnson defends Russia and China; minimizes Russian disinformation

By: Steve Schuster, [email protected]//April 30, 2023//

Senator Ron Johnson defends Russia and China; minimizes Russian disinformation

By: Steve Schuster, [email protected]//April 30, 2023//

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By Steve Schuster

[email protected]

Senator Ron Johnson defended two of America’s greatest adversaries during a Milwaukee Press Club event on April 24, 2023.

Johnson minimized Russian and Chinese actions related to election interference, believing them not to have been a threat to the U.S. elections especially when compared to alleged actions carried out by the Biden administration.

Johnson alleged Biden lied during a pre-2020 election campaign debate, which allegedly interfered with the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.

“(Biden’s alleged debate lie) interfered into our election to a far greater extent than anything Russia or China could ever hope to accomplish,” Johnson said.

Even in the event that the Biden campaign had not been truthful in that one instance, Russian interference in U.S. elections is nothing to minimize like Johnson did, officials said.

(Republicans) were disingenuous in downplaying Russia’s influence operations on behalf of the former president,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with the New York Times.

“It was a disservice not to level with the public and to try to fudge the intelligence in the way they did,” Schiff added.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), on July 13, 2018, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers for their alleged roles in interfering with the 2016 United States (U.S.) elections, by hacking their way into Americans’ computers.

The Russian computer hacking conspiracy involved gaining unauthorized access into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, stealing documents from those computers, and staging releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Two other defendants were charged with a separate conspiracy to commit computer crimes, relating to hacking into the computers of U.S. persons and entities responsible for the administration of 2016 U.S. elections. These included: state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and U.S. companies supplying software and other technology related to the administration of U.S. elections.

Additionally, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched offensives attempting to cripple Biden’s campaign, including a covert op intended to assist then President Donald Trump’s campaign, according to a declassified intelligence report released in 2021.

“Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions,” the report said.

“Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” Avril D. Haines, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), said in a statement to The New York Times. “These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
The report detailed several specific examples of how Russia interfered with the U.S. election.

“The Kremlin-linked influence organization Project Lakhta and its Lakhta Internet Re arch (LIR) troll farm commonly referred to by its former moniker Internet Research Agency (IRA) controversial domestic issues. LIR used social media personas, news websites, and US persons to deliver tailored content to subsets of the US population. LIR established short-lived troll farms that used unwitting third-country nationals in Ghana, Mexico, and Nigeria to propagate these US-focused narratives, probably in response to efforts by US companies and law enforcement to shut down LIR-associated personas,” the report said.

“Russian state media, trolls, and online proxies, including those directed by Russian intelligence, published disparaging content about President Biden, his family, and the Democratic Party, and heavily amplified related content circulating in US media, including stories centered on his son. These influence actors frequently sought out US contributors to increase their reach into US audiences … Russian online influence actors generally promoted former President Trump and his commentary,” the report added.

The Russian government directed extensive activity against U.S. election infrastructure, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said its 2019 election security findings contained in a bipartisan Russia Report.

The Committee found the activity directed at the state and local level began in at least 2014 and carried into at least 2017.

“In 2016, the U.S. was unprepared at all levels of government for a concerted attack from a determined foreign adversary on our election infrastructure. Since then, we have learned much more about the nature of Russia’s cyber activities and better understand the real and urgent threat they pose. The Department of Homeland Security and state and local elections officials have dramatically changed how they approach election security, working together to bridge gaps in information sharing and shore up vulnerabilities. The progress they’ve made over the last three years is a testament to what we can accomplish when we give people the opportunity to be part of a solution,” the committee said.

“Threats to critical infrastructure remain very real,” said Rob Joyce, NSA Cybersecurity Director in an April 2022 media release.

Federal law enforcement officials and the intelligence community remain committed to fighting Russian and other foreign disinformation campaigns and will hold those accountable foreign or domestic.

 

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