October 12, 2024
On October 7, 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in collaboration with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) held a press conference regarding efforts to stop foreign interference in the November Presidential Election as reported by The Gateway Pundit. The 20-minute briefing and lengthy Q&A focused on the big concerns around election security, although the issues of transparency and intelligence priorities were far from settled.
ODNI representatives handed out two documents to the reporters attending the briefing: the most recent intelligence community (IC) assessment of foreign interference, and a fact sheet detailing the activities and mandates of US government agencies in election security. But the clear neglect of some of election security’s most important areas – especially domestic vulnerabilities – had many in the audience concerned.
Overlooking Domestic Risks: The Elephant in the Room.
Among the most serious objections to the briefing was that nothing was said on the illegal voting problem. Federal statutes, 18 USC 611 specifically, do explicitly provide for the election of only US citizens to federal elections. Despite this obvious direction, the ODNI briefing never mentioned what impact illegal immigrants might have upon voter rolls, a reality now further compounded by the Biden administration’s border enforcement actions and growing number of non-citizens in this country.
Now, as millions of illegal immigrants cross the border, others have lamented that voter registration programs, particularly laws such as the 1993 Motor Voter Act, fail to provide proof of citizenship. These fears are compounded by reports of lax enforcement of federal voter-rights laws by city election authorities. The ODNI didn’t touch on the issue during the briefing as many have questioned Kamala Harris’s focus on immigration policy and border management.
Russia Coming Home: Déjà Vu
The briefing also featured the reprise of an old story: Russian interference. Even after Special Counsel John Durham’s report from 2023 discredited a significant portion of the original “Russia collusion” story, ODNI investigators attributed Russia as a main culprit in foreign election interference. The intelligence community is saying that Russia is trying to meddle in the 2024 election, again for Donald Trump by attacking Kamala Harris.
That tired story has prompted some concern because the ODNI could offer no empirical proof for it. It harks back to the infamous 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), found, in the Durham report, to have been assembled without much fact-checking. Indeed, many of the principal authors of the 2016 report, including former FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director John Brennan, turned out to have personally been at play in the creation of the flawed conclusions.
To compound the doubt, the ODNI’s report ignored that Charles McGonigal, a former senior FBI official implicated in the 2016 Russia story, later went on to be sentenced for his own complicity with Russia. As Gateway Pundit reports, critics are now wondering: who in the intelligence community will be held accountable this time? The $80 billion-a-year U.S. intelligence apparatus was expected to learn from its past mistakes, but the reliance on outdated narratives suggests otherwise.
Iran’s Position: A Confusing Conclusion
More surprising is the fact that the ODNI named Iran as the most prominent foreign power seeking to influence the 2024 election. Iran’s supposed VP in the election, according to the intelligence community, is Kamala Harris. But no explanation of why this was so was given and a good number wondered if it was correct.
It is all the more confusing when compared with recent Department of Justice and FBI reports of Iranian assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Iranians Majid Dastjani Farahani, Asif Merchant and Shahram Poursafi were implicated in these assassinations, as was Abouzar Rahmati, formerly a contractor for the FAA. This news sets me wondering if Iran really wants to murder Trump — if they’re targeting him for killing, how could they be aiding his rival Kamala Harris?
Critics, including some in the intelligence establishment, have said that either could be true: Iran’s moves are likely a game of geopolitics meant to break the US, and don’t back any one candidate. But the ODNI briefing never touched on these issues, and the answer remains uncertain.
China’s Absence from the Discussion: A Strategic Blind Spot
What’s more surprising was the near-total lack of China in the dialogue. But, despite increasing bipartisan worries about China’s influence in U.S. elections (including congressional races), the ODNI stated that it does not monitor presidential-level elections. This statement flies in the face of mounting evidence that China, through its alliances with countries like Iran, is playing a significant role in global destabilization efforts.
When China’s involvement in the 2024 election has been left out, people have wondered whether the intelligence community is intentionally oversimplifying or missing one of the most potent threats to US election security. The naysayers, even within the intelligence community, have noted that because of China’s “No Limits” deal with Iran, there is absolutely no way that China would not intervene in US presidential elections if Iran were doing so.
In addition, the silence around the use of TikTok (also known as “digital fentanyl” for its corrosive impacts on American young people) only made one believe that the intelligence community isn’t telling the whole story about the risks for the United States going into the 2024 election.
The Tyranny of the Narrative: A Deep State Coup?
The Oct. 7 briefing outlined how deeply the “Tyranny of the Narrative” remains entrenched in the US intelligence community. After decades of debate and critique, the same narratives — Russian meddling, or the absence of any other major players such as China — continue to drive the discourse even when evidence has been absent.
The $80 billion a year intelligence services should be headed by the “best people” in the country, as Gateway Pundit points out, but instead they seem to have been hoarding unproven ad hominem narratives that’s been fed to us in vain. This does not make us confident about the validity of the election, nor in determining whether the intelligence community really wants to win the election or advance a political agenda.
Kamala Harris is trailing Donald Trump 3-2 and there are already multiple assaults against Trump reported, it’s all on the line. When it comes to Election Day, voters need to be vigilant, and local election officials need to ensure every vote counts, legally and fairly. American democracy is relying on it.
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