Intel director confirms foreign interference in 2020 election

FPI / December 18, 2020

Communist China interfered in the 2020 presidential election, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has confirmed, according to CBS News correspondent Catherine Herridge.

However other U.S. intelligence agencies have defied President Donald Trump's 2018 executive order by missing the Dec. 18 deadline that Ratcliffe honored.

“The IC has received relevant reporting since the election and a number of agencies have not finished coordinating on the product,” said Amanda Schoch, a spokeswoman for the office, adding that Ratcliffe remains committed to an expeditious release of the report.

ODNI announced late Wednesday that the Intelligence Community (IC) has notified Ratcliffe that they will not meet the Dec. 18 deadline set by President Donald Trump’s executive order to submit the report on foreign threats during the November election as “agencies have not finished coordinating on the product.”

“This afternoon the DNI was notified by career intelligence officials that the Intelligence Community (IC) will not meet the Dec. 18 deadline, set by executive order and Congress to submit the IC’s classified assessment on foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. elections,” said Schoch.

“Well DNI Ratcliffe leads the 17 intelligence agencies and he has access to the most highly classified information that is held by the U.S. government. And he told CBS News that there was foreign interference by China, Iran, and Russia in November of this year and he is anticipating a public report on those findings in January,” Herridge reported.

In an interview with Herridge earlier this month, Ratcliffe said China poses the greatest national security threat to the United States. Beijing is willing to use blackmail, bribery and covert and overt influence to ensure the U.S. enacts laws favorable to Chinese interests, Ratcliffe said.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) confirmed that their upcoming report includes information about “relevant” foreign threats from the Nov. 3 election.

So is Ratcliffe speaking on behalf or or in opposition to the U.S. intelligence community?

Fox News, which critics contend has a vested interest in the outcome of the 2020 election, quoted intelligence sources who said Ratcliffe is honoring traditional tradecraft by seeking to avoid the politicization of U.S. intelligence.

Former acting DNI Richard Grenell tweeted on Dec. 16 that Ratcliffe is "standing up for career analysts who want their views to be accurately reflected. In other words, fighting to keep intelligence from being politicized."

But, he added, "John Ratcliffe has access to the most sensitive intel. This is important."

Ratcliffe’s statement on foreign interference in the Nov. 3 election has contradicted others made by national security officials.

Christopher Krebs, the recently-fired top cybersecurity official during the presidential election, testified before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

“While elections are sometimes messy, this was a secure election,” Krebs said.

On a Nov. 27 “60 minutes” interview, Krebs was asked what he thought of the Trump legal team’s allegations that votes were tabulated in foreign countries and were manipulated.

“So, all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America,” Krebs said. “I don’t understand this claim. All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.”

Adding, “So, again, there’s no evidence that any machine that I’m aware of, has been manipulated by a foreign power. Period.”

Attorney Sidney Powell filed a letter with the Supreme Court on Dec. 13 to notify them of two batches of recently obtained evidence about Dominion Voting Systems voting equipment.

Her letter outlines new affidavits from two forensic experts who allege that international interference took place in the 2020 election and that Dominion systems were connected to foreign systems around the globe.

Powell said that two military intelligence analysts have signed sworn affidavits stating that the SSL certificates from dominionvoting.com were used multiple times from Canada, Serbia, and the United States.

Free Press International