Op-ed: Why does the US intelligence and FBI seem to ignore election interference threats from everyone besides Russia?

The 2024 landmark election has concluded with a resounding victory for the Grand Old Party. With the newly acquired Republican majority in Congress and Donald Trump as President-elect, the United States is facing a pivotal moment that promises to bring long-awaited changes.

The outcome was far from certain in the months and days leading up to the election. With polls showing a dead heat between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, with only a marginal difference, even prominent pundits could not predict a winner. Having experienced election interference controversies in 2016 and 2020, Americans were fearful that similar issues would mar this year's voting process. This anxiety was further fueled by numerous statements from high-ranking politicians and government agencies alleging attempts to influence the presidential election.

In May, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed that the 2024 election would likely be the most targeted by malicious foreign actors in American history. He warned that our adversaries would be increasingly aggressive and sophisticated in their influence operations.

Despite the committee hearing's broad examination of foreign actors' potential election interference, the discussion was largely focused on Russia's efforts. Such reasoning raises questions, as the 2016 allegations on Russia-Trump connections turned out to be baseless. Furthermore, a thorough investigation of Putin’s meddling found little or no real effect. Considering Russia's significantly diminished capabilities following its troubled invasion of Ukraine and the technological and financial limitations imposed by sanctions, Russia's potential may be overestimated.

Later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), together with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), issued numerous statements about suspicious online activity aimed at soiling the Democratic Party’s presidential effort. In September and October, those claims concerned controversial videos soiling particular candidates and raising issues like illegal voting. Specifically, they accused Tim Walz of sexual misconduct and showed non-citizens casting early votes. According to authorities, the content used either fabricated information or deepfake technologies. The videos were allegedly originated from Russia-linked actors.

A day before the general election, November 4, a joint statement from the FBI, the ODNI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported on detecting influence operations aimed at undermining public confidence in voting integrity. Just like months before, Russia was declared the most active threat. 

Now, when the pivotal election has resulted in a win for the country-saving force, the consistent accusations of meddling look more unusual than before. Certainly, these warnings played an important role hours before the decisive voting, encouraging people to go to polling places and vote in person. However, there is a strong feeling that something is wrong.

Suddenly, it raises concerns about why serious government agencies double down on interference allegations. Why do the FBI and others focus on Russia’s efforts, paying less attention to other dangerous actors like China and Iran? These adversaries of ours are actually mentioned in numerous reports, but their activities seem to still lack thorough investigation.

On November 3, Tulsi Gabbard, a respected Democrat turned Republican, accused the FBI of covering the Iranian interference efforts. A prominent GOP female politician claimed Tehran was trying to undermine Trump’s campaign by cyber and information operations and that the responsible American agencies did insufficient work if not to investigate it, but to counter at least. 

This year, the FBI, top Democratic lawmakers, and mainstream media sounded the alarm over Russia's meddling, often exaggerating its significance while devoting less attention to equally pressing threats from other countries. One possible explanation for this disparity is that the controversy surrounding Russian interference, which has been extensively discussed since 2016, has become a more familiar and tangible concern than the less visible efforts of China and Iran. The widespread perception that Russia's malicious activities are intended to support Trump has become an ingrained narrative, the idea which has been refuted many times now.

One might think that constant warnings and reports on interference are not meant to strengthen election integrity. It looks as if somebody relentlessly wants us, the people, to believe the voting could have been compromised because of foreign actors’ activities. In that case, those who spread the ‘meddled election’ narrative might mean the outcome of the vote is wrong, and the winner is wrong, too.

The 2024 Democratic campaign proved to be too aggressive towards both the GOP standard-bearer and his supporters. Recall the terrible ‘Nazi’ and ‘Garbage’ rhetoric that is openly offensive and discriminating. Ironically, that all comes from the party claiming it is dedicated to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ideas. Add this hatred to overwhelming Harris’ confidence in success with unbelievably massive financial capabilities of over $1 billion in received donations only and endorsement from top-tier artists, as well as media and tech corporations; still, the Dems suffered a devastating defeat.

After creating a virtual sense of landslide victory among supporters, the Democrats failed to change the reality, where at least half the country voted Republican. There is a feeling that Harris’ HQ was fooled by its own populist rhetoric, underestimating the level of support for Trump. However, when reality defies expectations, accepting what you have been relentlessly denying can be difficult. Maybe this is the real reason the Democrat-supportive FBI and other agencies made consistent claims on the election interference to lay the groundwork for one more explanation of why things went wrong, and the voting proved America is tired of that kind of BLUE and now has drastically turned RED.