US Intelligence: Iran is Trying to Influence Elections Against Trump

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – A statement issued on Monday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) described Iranian efforts to meddle in the upcoming U.S. elections, as well as to sow discord within the U.S.

Iran does not want to see former president Donald Trump re-elected. Indeed, that was also Iran’s position in the 2020 elections, when it also sought to influence the vote against Trump.

Tehran has denied the accusation. Its U.N. mission in New York stated,“Iran does not engage in any objectives or activities intended to influence the U.S. election.”

U.S. Intelligence on Iran Influence Operations

The ODNI statement described a range of influence operations that Iran is conducting, which are directed at the U.S. public. 

In addition to attempting to influence the elections, Iran is also “continuing efforts to fuel distrust in U.S. political institutions and increase social discord,” it stated. 

That activity is greatly facilitated by social media and the internet. Some thirty years ago, when the internet scarcely existed, it simply would not have been possible for Iran to reach so many Americans and influence their political views. 

“Since our last update, the IC [Intelligence Community] has observed Tehran working to influence the presidential elections,” Monday’s ODNI statement said. “Tehran relies on vast webs of online persona and propaganda mills to spread disinformation and have notably been active in exacerbating tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict.”

Indeed, in a July 9 statement issued by Avril Haines, Director of the ODNI, she said, “In recent weeks, Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza.”

“We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests and even providing support to protestors,” she continued.

In a press briefing on Monday, one senior official suggested that such activity, aimed at sowing discord, constituted a larger part of Iran’s influence operations than efforts to influence the elections.

Kurdistan 24 has repeatedly suggested that the same concept applies to Iranian-backed actors in the region. Tehran is using the conflict between Israel and Hamas to mobilize its proxies, including militias in Iraq, against the U.S. and its allies. 

That may help explain why America’s traditional Arab allies, including countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have not exerted substantial pressure, at least not publicly, to rein in Israel.

Indeed, it is even possible that Iran had a hand in Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel which triggered the current conflict. Iran certainly benefits from it.

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Iran’s 2020 Influence Operations 

The U.S. intelligence community earlier declassified a report that it had provided the Biden administration, along with the U.S. Congress, on Jan. 7, 2021, shortly before the administration took office.

That report might have served as a warning to the incoming administration that its effort to reconcile with Iran and renew the Obama-era nuclear deal would run into substantial problems—as it did. But that lesson was not absorbed at the time.

“We assess with high confidence that Iran carried out an influence campaign during the 2020 U.S. election season intended to undercut the reelection prospects of former President Trump and to further its longstanding objectives of exacerbating divisions in the US, creating confusion, and undermining the legitimacy of US elections and institutions,” the Jan. 7, 2021, intelligence report stated.

“Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei probably authorized Iran’s influence campaign.” it continued, and “it was a whole of government effort, judging from the involvement of multiple Iranian Government elements.”

The report then described how Americans were driven into a highly emotional state, and in that state—one of great anger—they could be manipulated.

“In a highly targeted operation, Iranian cyber actors sent threatening, spoofed emails purporting to be from the Proud Boys,” the report explained.

The Proud Boys are a right-wing, pro-Trump group. They were involved in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in favor of Trump.

The emails were sent “to Democratic voters in multiple U.S. states, demanding that the individuals change their party affiliation and vote to reelect former President Trump,” the intelligence report explained.

Of course, if someone who dislikes Trump receives such an email, he will get angry, and he will be more likely to go out and vote against Trump and not just sit at home.

“We assess that Iran primarily relied on cyber tools and methods to conduct its covert operations, because they are low cost, deniable, scalable, and do not depend on physical access to the United States,” the intelligence report’s section on Iraq concluded.

“Iranian cyber actors who focused on influence operations targeting the election adapted their activities and content based on political developments and blended cyber intrusions with online influence operations,” it explained.