MALIGN FOREIGN INFLUENCE
INTRODUCTION
In the wake of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, President Donald J. Trump and his apologists attempted to blame his loss on foreign interference. They falsely claimed that foreign-manufactured voting machines had been manipulated so that votes cast for Trump were instead recorded as votes for Joseph R. Biden, Jr.[1] No one has ever, either at the time or since, offered any evidence to support Trump’s assertion. On the contrary, ample evidence collected by the Intelligence Community (IC) and reviewed by the Select Committee disproves those claims.
That is not to say foreign actors made no attempt to influence the American political climate during and after the 2020 Presidential election. This appendix evaluates the role foreign influence played in the circumstances surrounding the insurrection.[2]
DISCUSSION
ELECTION MEDDLING IN 2020:
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE? NO. FOREIGN INFLUENCE? YES.
In its postmortem assessment of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, the Intelligence Community comprehensively examined two types of foreign meddling: interference and influence. The distinction between the two is critical in evaluating President Trump’s repeated public assertions that there had been massive and widespread “fraud” that had the effect of “stealing” the election for then-candidate Biden.
For its analytic purposes, the Intelligence Community defines election interference as “a subset of election influence activities targeted at the technical aspects of the election, including voter registration, casting and counting ballots, or reporting results.”[3] That definition notes that election interference is a subset of election influence, which the Intelligence Community defines to include “overt and covert efforts by foreign governments or actors acting as agents of, or on behalf of, foreign governments intended to affect directly or indirectly a US election—including candidates, political parties, voters or their preferences, or political processes.”[4]
The Intelligence Community's Assessment (ICA) found no factual basis for any allegation of technical interference with the 2020 U.S. election: "We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to interfere in the 2020 US elections by altering any technical aspect of the voting process, including voter registration, ballot casting, vote tabulation, or reporting
