By Jonathan Landay and Erin Banco
July 13 WASHINGTON,(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is slated to speak on Thursday about newly declassified intelligence on foreign nations’ plans to interfere in the U.S. election in 2020, an MS Now reporter said on X, citing two unidentified White House officials.
The Republican president repeatedly has claimed that he lost the 2020 vote to Democrat Joe Biden because of massive fraud. But numerous courts, ballot audits and his first-term Justice Department found no evidence no evidence of widespread fraud that could have affected the outcome.
Propelled by the Trump’s repeated claims that U.S. elections are “rigged,” the administration has for more than a year sought to increase federal oversight of election administration in a bid to reshape the way Americans vote — an effort that legal experts say would take power away from states in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
A 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment found no indications that any foreign actor attempted or succeeded in altering “any technical aspect” of the 2020 presidential election vote, including voter registrations, ballots, tabulations or results.
The assessment judged that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized parts of his government to conduct influence operations aimed at boosting the vote for Trump and undermining public confidence in the U.S. electoral process.
China considered conducting influence operations designed to change the election outcome but decided against doing so, while Iran pursued a “multi-pronged” covert influence campaign to undercut Trump’s candidacy, the assessment said.
The report was drafted by the National Intelligence Council, the top body of U.S. intelligence analysts, along with the CIA, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the State Department’s intelligence bureau and the National Security Agency.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Jonathan Landay; editing by Michelle Nichols, Caitlin Webber, Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
