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Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is

Meddling to Re-elect Trump
A classified briefing to House members is said to have angered the
president, who complained that Democrats would “weaponize” the
disclosure.

By Adam Goldman, Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos

Feb. 20, 2020

WASHINGTON — Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week

that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President
Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to
Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use
it against him.

The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph
Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to
take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump was particularly
irritated that Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the
leader of the impeachment proceedings, was at the briefing.

During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies
challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and that
he had strengthened European security.
Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying the
conclusions could have been delivered in a less pointed manner or left out
entirely to avoid angering Republicans. The intelligence official who delivered
the briefing, Shelby Pierson, is an aide to Mr. Maguire and has a reputation for
speaking bluntly.

Though intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers that Russia’s

interference campaign was continuing, last week’s briefing included what
appeared to be new information: that Russia intended to interfere with the
2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.

On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Mr. Maguire

with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and an aggressively vocal
Trump supporter. And though some current and former officials speculated
that the briefing might have played a role in that move, two administration
officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell had been in discussions
with the administration about taking on new roles, they said, and Mr. Trump
had never felt a kinship with Mr. Maguire.

Spokeswomen for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its
election security office declined to comment. A White House spokesman did
not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A Democratic House Intelligence Committee official called the Feb. 13 briefing

an important update about “the integrity of our upcoming elections” and said
that members of both parties attended, including Representative Devin Nunes
of California, the top Republican on the committee.

In a tweet on Thursday evening, Mr. Schiff said that it appeared that Mr.
Trump was “again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling” with his
objections to the briefing.

Mr. Trump has long accused the intelligence community’s assessment of

Russia’s 2016 interference as the work of a “deep state” conspiracy intent on
undermining the validity of his election. Intelligence officials feel burned by
their experience after the last election, when their work became a subject of
intense political debate and is now a focus of a Justice Department
investigation.

Part of the president’s anger stemmed from the administration’s reluctance to

provide delicate information to Mr. Schiff. He has been a leading critic of Mr.
Trump since 2016, doggedly investigating Russian election interference and
later leading the impeachment inquiry into the president’s dealings with
Ukraine.

Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Schiff would “weaponize” the intelligence
about Russia’s support for him, according to a person familiar with the
briefing. And he was angry that he was not told right away about the briefing,
the person said.

Mr. Trump has fixated on Mr. Schiff since the impeachment saga began,
pummeling him publicly with insults and unfounded accusations of corruption.
In October, Mr. Trump refused to invite lawmakers from the congressional
intelligence committees to a White House briefing on Syria because he did not
want Mr. Schiff there, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The president did not erupt at Mr. Maguire, and instead just asked pointed
questions, according to the person. But the message was unmistakable: He
was not happy.

Ms. Pierson, officials said, was delivering the conclusion of multiple

intelligence agencies, not her own opinion. The Washington Post first reported
the Oval Office confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Maguire, but not the
substance of the disagreement.

The intelligence community issued an assessment in early 2017 that President

Vladimir V. Putin personally ordered a campaign of influence in the previous
year’s election and developed “a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
But Republicans have long argued that Moscow’s campaign was intended to
sow chaos, not aid Mr. Trump specifically.
Some Republicans have accused the intelligence agencies of opposing Mr.
Trump, but intelligence officials reject those accusations. They fiercely guard
their work as nonpartisan, saying it is the only way to ensure its validity.

At the House briefing, Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, who

has been considered for the director’s post, was among the Republicans who
challenged the conclusion about Russia’s support for Mr. Trump. Mr. Stewart
insisted that the president had aggressively confronted Moscow, providing
anti-tank weapons to Ukraine for its war against Russia-backed separatists
and strengthening the NATO alliance with new resources, according to two
people briefed on the meeting.

Mr. Stewart declined to discuss the briefing but said that Moscow had no
reason to support Mr. Trump. He pointed to the president’s work to confront
Iran, a Russian ally, and encourage European energy independence from
Moscow. “I’d challenge anyone to give me a real-world argument where Putin
would rather have President Trump and not Bernie Sanders,” Mr. Stewart said
in an interview, referring to the nominal Democratic primary race front-
runner.

Under Mr. Putin, Russian intelligence has long sought to stir turmoil among
around the world. The United States and key allies on Thursday accused
Russian military intelligence, the group responsible for much of the 2016
election interference in the United States, of a cyberattack on neighboring
Georgia that took out websites and television broadcasts.

The Russians have been preparing — and experimenting — for the 2020
election, undeterred by American efforts to thwart them but aware that they
needed a new playbook of as-yet-undetectable methods, United States officials
said.

They have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media.
Rather than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives
are working to get Americans to repeat disinformation, the officials said. That
strategy gets around social media companies’ rules that prohibit “inauthentic
speech.”

And the Russians are working from servers in the United States, rather than
abroad, knowing that American intelligence agencies are prohibited from
operating inside the country. (The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland
Security are allowed to do so with aid from the intelligence agencies.)

Russian hackers have also infiltrated Iran’s cyberwarfare unit, perhaps with
the intent of launching attacks that would look like they were coming from
Tehran, the National Security Agency has warned.

Some officials believe that foreign powers, possibly including Russia, could
use ransomware attacks, like those that have debilitated some local
governments, to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration
databases.

Still, much of the Russian aim is similar to its 2016 interference, officials said:
search for issues that stir controversy in the United States and use various
methods to stoke division.

One of Moscow’s main goals is to undermine confidence in American election

systems, intelligence officials have told lawmakers, seeking to sow doubts
over close elections and recounts. American officials have said they want to
maintain confidence in the country’s voting systems, so confronting those
Russian efforts is difficult.

Both Republicans and Democrats asked the intelligence agencies to hand over
the underlying material that prompted their conclusion that Russia again is
favoring Mr. Trump’s election.

Although the intelligence conclusion that Russia is trying to interfere in the

2020 Democratic primaries is new, in the 2019 report of the special counsel,
Robert S. Mueller III, there is a reference to Russian desires to help Mr.
Sanders in his presidential primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The report quoted internal documents from the Internet Research Agency, a
troll factory sponsored by Russian intelligence, in an order to its operatives:
“Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest except for Sanders and
Trump — we support them.”

How soon the House committee might get that information is not clear. Since
the impeachment inquiry, tensions have risen between the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence and the committee. As officials navigate the
disputes, the intelligence agencies have slowed the amount of material they
provide to the House, officials said. The agencies are required by law to
regularly brief Congress on threats.

While Republicans have long been critical of the Obama administration for not
doing enough to track and deter Russian interference in 2016, current and
former intelligence officials said the party is at risk of making a similar
mistake now. Mr. Trump has been reluctant to even hear about election
interference, and Republicans dislike discussing it publicly.

The aftermath of last week’s briefing prompted some intelligence officials to

voice concerns that the White House will dismantle a key election security
effort by Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence: the
establishment of an election interference czar. Ms. Pierson has held the post
since last summer.

And some current and former intelligence officials expressed fears that Mr.
Grenell may have been put in place explicitly to slow the pace of information
on election interference to Congress. The revelations about Mr. Trump’s
confrontation with Mr. Maguire raised new concerns about Mr. Grenell’s
appointment, said the Democratic House committee official, who added that
the upcoming election could be more vulnerable to foreign interference.

Mr. Trump, former officials have said, is typically uninterested in election

interference briefings, and Mr. Grenell might see it as unwise to emphasize
such intelligence with the president.
“The biggest concern I would have is if the intelligence community was not
forthcoming and not providing the analysis in the run-up to the next election,”
said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former intelligence official now with the Center
for a New American Security. “It is really concerning that this is happening in
the run-up to an election.”

Mr. Grenell’s unbridled loyalty is clearly important to Mr. Trump but may not
be ideally suited for an intelligence chief making difficult decisions about what
to brief to the president and Congress, Ms. Kendall-Taylor said.

“Trump is trying to whitewash or rewrite the narrative about Russia’s

involvement in the election,” she said. “Grenell’s appointment suggests he is
really serious about that.”

The acting deputy to Mr. Maguire, Andrew P. Hallman, will step down on
Friday, officials said, paving the way for Mr. Grenell to put in place his own
management team. Mr. Hallman was the intelligence office’s principal
executive, but since the resignation in August of the previous deputy, Sue
Gordon, he has been performing the duties of that post.

Mr. Maguire is planning to leave government, according to an American

official.

Adam Goldman, Julian E. Barnes and Nicholas Fandos reported from Washington, and Maggie
Haberman from New York. Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.

Our 2020 Election Guide

Updated Feb. 20, 2020

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