The Making of the President 2024: Election Interference by Foreign Countries
Those who are said to have some expertise in this field have stated that foreign interference in the 2024 election is likely. Three major factors are listed as contributing to this likelihood. The first is increasing levels of political polarization (creating the opportunity for those wanting to interfere with the election by using those on the fringes as "useful idiots" who will believe and spread anything negative about their opponent.) The second is the failure of attempts to regulate political speech on social media, preventing the dissemination and spread of "fake news." The third is the rise of generative AI."
On April 1, 2024, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government had created fake pro-Trump accounts on social media "promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November." Disinformation experts and intelligence agencies also claim that Russia is spreading disinformation ahead of the 2024 election to damage Joe Biden and Democrats, in order to boost candidates supporting isolationism, and to undercut support for Ukraine aid and NATO.
According to author Dov H. Levin, in his 2020 book Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions, the United States has been guilty of interference in foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. A study conducted by the author, there is evidence to support his conclusion that such interventions increased the risk of democratic breakdown in the targeted states. He claims that from 1946 to 2000, the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections, and the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in 36 foreign elections. He concluded that on average, an electoral intervention in favor of one side contesting the election will increase its vote share by about 3 percent. While that amount may sound insignificant, interference at that level could have potentially changed the results in seven out of the last fourteen U.S. presidential elections.
A 2019 study from Sweden concluded that the most intense interventions, by means of false information on key political issues, was committed by China and by Russia.
These studies found that there are two types of foreign intervention: partisan intervention, where the foreign power supports one side, and process intervention, where the foreign power intends merely to create electoral chaos regardless of who wins.
On December 9, 2016, the Central Intelligence Agency issued an assessment to lawmakers in the US Senate, which found that a Russian entity hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and campaign manahger John Podesta's emails in order to assist Donald Trump's campaign. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed with this conclusion. President Barack Obama ordered a review into possible intervention. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper in early January 2017 testified before a Senate committee that Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign went beyond hacking, and included disinformation and the dissemination of fake news, often promoted on social media. Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election, a Russian company funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin, had purchased over $100,000 worth of advertisements on the website, 25% of which were geographically targeted to the U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump called the report fabricated at first, but later said he could be convinced of the Russian hacking "if there is a unified presentation of evidence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies." Several U.S. senators-including Republican John McCain, demanded a congressional investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced the scope of their official inquiry on December 13, 2016, on a bipartisan basis; work began on January 24, 2017. A formal Special Counsel investigation headed by former FBI director Robert Mueller was initiated in May 2017 to uncover the detailed interference operations by Russia, and to determine whether any people associated with the Trump campaign were complicit in the Russian efforts. In an appearance on the TV show Meet the Press on March 5, 2017, Clapper declared that intelligence investigations on Russian interference performed by the FBI, CIA, and the NSA had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller concluded his investigation on March 22, 2019, by submitting his report to Attorney General William Barr.
On March 24, 2019, Barr submitted a letter describing Mueller's conclusions, and on April 18, 2019, a redacted version of the Mueller report was released to the public. It concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur "in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law."
The first method detailed in the final report was the usage of the Internet Research Agency, waging "a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton." The report said that the Internet Research Agency also sought to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States."
The second method of Russian interference saw the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, hacking into email accounts owned by volunteers and employees of the Clinton presidential campaign, including that of campaign chairman John Podesta, and also hacking into "the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)." As a result, the GRU obtained hundreds of thousands of hacked documents, and the GRU proceeded by arranging releases of damaging hacked material via the WikiLeaks organization and also GRU's personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian interference, the special counsel's investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law." They also investigated if members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russia.
The Mueller report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign." It also found that Russia "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency" and that the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts. Ultimately, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Because some persons associated with the Trump campaign declined to cooperate or had deleted communications, the Mueller report concluded that it "cannot rule out the possibility" that information then unavailable to investigators would have presented different findings.
The Internet Research Agency is a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests. It was said to be operated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group, and based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The agency was first mentioned in 2016, when Russian journalist Andrey Zakharov published his investigation into Prigozhin’s "troll factory". The Mueller report also described the agency as a troll farm. The agency's modus operandi is to employ fake accounts registered on major social networking sites, discussion boards, online newspaper sites, and video hosting services to promote the Kremlin's interests in domestic and foreign policy including Ukraine and the Middle East as well as attempting to influence the 2016 United States presidential election. More than 1,000 employees reportedly worked in a single building of the agency in 2015.
CNN's Clarissa Ward reveals that Russia and the IRA have been running "troll factories" based in Nigeria and Ghana, with the aim to disrupt the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign. In February 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, stated that he founded the IRA. He said, "I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time." Prigozhin admitted to Russian interference in U.S. elections. But on July 1, 2023, it was announced that the Internet Research Agency would be shut down following the aftermath of the Wagner Group rebellion.
Many expect further attempts at foreign interference in the 2024 election from both Russia and China, as well as other nations. It remains to be seen whether knowledge of past activities will be sufficient to prevent a significant effect on the outcome of this election. That tweet disparaging your candidate may just be the product of a foreign troll factory, or it may be local, courtesy of some "useful idiot."
On April 1, 2024, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government had created fake pro-Trump accounts on social media "promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November." Disinformation experts and intelligence agencies also claim that Russia is spreading disinformation ahead of the 2024 election to damage Joe Biden and Democrats, in order to boost candidates supporting isolationism, and to undercut support for Ukraine aid and NATO.
According to author Dov H. Levin, in his 2020 book Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions, the United States has been guilty of interference in foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. A study conducted by the author, there is evidence to support his conclusion that such interventions increased the risk of democratic breakdown in the targeted states. He claims that from 1946 to 2000, the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections, and the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in 36 foreign elections. He concluded that on average, an electoral intervention in favor of one side contesting the election will increase its vote share by about 3 percent. While that amount may sound insignificant, interference at that level could have potentially changed the results in seven out of the last fourteen U.S. presidential elections.
A 2019 study from Sweden concluded that the most intense interventions, by means of false information on key political issues, was committed by China and by Russia.
These studies found that there are two types of foreign intervention: partisan intervention, where the foreign power supports one side, and process intervention, where the foreign power intends merely to create electoral chaos regardless of who wins.
On December 9, 2016, the Central Intelligence Agency issued an assessment to lawmakers in the US Senate, which found that a Russian entity hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and campaign manahger John Podesta's emails in order to assist Donald Trump's campaign. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed with this conclusion. President Barack Obama ordered a review into possible intervention. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper in early January 2017 testified before a Senate committee that Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign went beyond hacking, and included disinformation and the dissemination of fake news, often promoted on social media. Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election, a Russian company funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin, had purchased over $100,000 worth of advertisements on the website, 25% of which were geographically targeted to the U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump called the report fabricated at first, but later said he could be convinced of the Russian hacking "if there is a unified presentation of evidence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies." Several U.S. senators-including Republican John McCain, demanded a congressional investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced the scope of their official inquiry on December 13, 2016, on a bipartisan basis; work began on January 24, 2017. A formal Special Counsel investigation headed by former FBI director Robert Mueller was initiated in May 2017 to uncover the detailed interference operations by Russia, and to determine whether any people associated with the Trump campaign were complicit in the Russian efforts. In an appearance on the TV show Meet the Press on March 5, 2017, Clapper declared that intelligence investigations on Russian interference performed by the FBI, CIA, and the NSA had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller concluded his investigation on March 22, 2019, by submitting his report to Attorney General William Barr.
On March 24, 2019, Barr submitted a letter describing Mueller's conclusions, and on April 18, 2019, a redacted version of the Mueller report was released to the public. It concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur "in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law."
The first method detailed in the final report was the usage of the Internet Research Agency, waging "a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton." The report said that the Internet Research Agency also sought to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States."
The second method of Russian interference saw the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, hacking into email accounts owned by volunteers and employees of the Clinton presidential campaign, including that of campaign chairman John Podesta, and also hacking into "the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)." As a result, the GRU obtained hundreds of thousands of hacked documents, and the GRU proceeded by arranging releases of damaging hacked material via the WikiLeaks organization and also GRU's personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian interference, the special counsel's investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law." They also investigated if members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russia.
The Mueller report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign." It also found that Russia "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency" and that the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts. Ultimately, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Because some persons associated with the Trump campaign declined to cooperate or had deleted communications, the Mueller report concluded that it "cannot rule out the possibility" that information then unavailable to investigators would have presented different findings.
The Internet Research Agency is a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests. It was said to be operated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group, and based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The agency was first mentioned in 2016, when Russian journalist Andrey Zakharov published his investigation into Prigozhin’s "troll factory". The Mueller report also described the agency as a troll farm. The agency's modus operandi is to employ fake accounts registered on major social networking sites, discussion boards, online newspaper sites, and video hosting services to promote the Kremlin's interests in domestic and foreign policy including Ukraine and the Middle East as well as attempting to influence the 2016 United States presidential election. More than 1,000 employees reportedly worked in a single building of the agency in 2015.
CNN's Clarissa Ward reveals that Russia and the IRA have been running "troll factories" based in Nigeria and Ghana, with the aim to disrupt the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign. In February 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, stated that he founded the IRA. He said, "I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time." Prigozhin admitted to Russian interference in U.S. elections. But on July 1, 2023, it was announced that the Internet Research Agency would be shut down following the aftermath of the Wagner Group rebellion.
Many expect further attempts at foreign interference in the 2024 election from both Russia and China, as well as other nations. It remains to be seen whether knowledge of past activities will be sufficient to prevent a significant effect on the outcome of this election. That tweet disparaging your candidate may just be the product of a foreign troll factory, or it may be local, courtesy of some "useful idiot."