With the presidential election less than two months away, the topic of foreign interference in the U.S. election is of particular interest to American voters. Who is interfering in the U.S. presidential election? Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says: It’s Russia, not China; White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien says: China plays the most active role.
At a press conference in Delaware on April 4, Biden said he does not believe China is the biggest threat to the U.S. presidential election, nor does he support Attorney General William Barr’s view of China as the biggest threat to the election, based on information he has received.
Biden said that many countries around the world are happy to see the U.S. election become unstable, with Russia the most diligent, persistent, and unrelenting.
In an interview with CNN on February 2, Barr said he believes China is more active in trying to intervene in the U.S. election than either Russia or Iran, and said he has seen the intelligence before coming to that conclusion.
Biden criticized Barr for being a terrible attorney general and a terrible intelligence officer. Biden questioned the Trump administration for saying this because Trump wants to avoid a confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Biden said that if he is elected president, he will make any country that tries to influence the U.S. election suffer the consequences, and if he is elected president, he will respond to Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.
White House National Security Advisor O’Brien said in response to a reporter’s inquiry at a White House press conference on April 4 that China is the largest and most active of the countries that have interfered in the U.S. presidential election and that the United States has warned China and other countries that there will be consequences for interfering in the U.S. election.
After Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and Attorney General William Barr, O’Brien is the third high-ranking official to name China as the biggest threat, and the Trump team has been remarkably consistent.
Since 2016, foreign interference in the presidential election has become a major issue in the U.S. election. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report last month stating that China, Russia, and Iran could all interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The report also analyzed the three countries’ preferences for individual candidates: China wants Trump not to be re-elected, Russia has an antipathy toward Democratic presidential candidate Biden, and Iran is intent on hurting President Trump.
The U.S. knows that China has played the most active role in interfering in the U.S. presidential election, and that Russia and Iran are also involved, O’Brien said, adding that the U.S. has taken unprecedented action to strengthen its election infrastructure. O’Brien said, “We have drawn the red line and made it clear to China, Russia, and Iran that they will face unintended consequences for attempting to interfere in the U.S. election.”
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