Short thread:
Latest ODNI election interference provides some more important detail about election interference but seems to (intentionally) conflate public statements from foreign countries (China/Iran) with covert malign influence efforts (Russia). They are not the same. 1/
Latest ODNI election interference provides some more important detail about election interference but seems to (intentionally) conflate public statements from foreign countries (China/Iran) with covert malign influence efforts (Russia). They are not the same. 1/
After sucking up to Xi earlier this year, Trump has seemingly decided that making China the bad guy will give him an opening to blame China for his election loss. So he has taken actions to upset China (blame them for virus, close Houston consulate, Tiktok/WeChat, etc). 2/
So it is no surprise that China is unhappy with that recent 180 from Trump to confrontation rather than appeasement. But China’s preference for Trump’s opponent in light of Trump’s antagonism is NOT the equivalent of Russia using proxies to spread disinformation in U.S. 3/
Same for Iran, against whom Trump has taken an aggressively adversarial approach following Obama admin Iran deal. Of course Iran would prefer Biden over Trump, who has threatened Iran from day one. But again, this is NOT equivalent to covert efforts to undermine election. 4/
Once again, the ODNI release reveals that Russia is trying to secretly and covertly influence our election. Notably, ODNI calls out KGB graduate Derkach for spreading disinformation to harm Biden. Why is this important? 5/
Because @SenRonJohnson is using information that our intelligence community has assessed to be an effort to influence the election in 3 months as a basis for his sham Ukraine investigation. Either wittingly or unwittingly, Johnson appears to be a Russian intelligence asset. END
