US Officials Distort Reality of Russian Threat to US 2024 Elections
According to anonymous officials from various government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), who spoke with the Associated Press (AP) on July 9, 2024, “Russia remains the greatest threat” in the media landscape as “the Kremlin is mounting a government-wide effort to spread election disinformation ahead of the 2024 race.” The officials also shared, “Russia is also seeking to cover its tracks by laundering its disinformation through supposedly independent news sites and American influencers who may not know they are parroting Russian talking points.”
However, there is a lack of evidence to support Russian influence reaching Americans enough to influence their elections. In fact, Russian-related alarmism directly perpetuated the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story originally published by the New York Post. Details continue to emerge as recently as May demonstrating that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials actively denied the legitimacy of and supported the suppression of the Hunter-Biden laptop story. Not only that, but congressional testimony reveals actively employed CIA agents planned the release of an open letter denying the Hunter Biden story to support Joe Biden.
A 2016 study found only 1% of Twitter users accounted for 70% of all exposure to “Russian troll accounts;” Partisan Republicans already likely to vote for Trump were exposed nine times more than non-Republicans, and US news media coverage was far more prevalent than any Russian content. And the most recently reported bot campaign was composed of 968 accounts, which represents 0.0009% of accounts on X. For context, the odds of being struck by lightning in the US is approximately 0.006%.
Ultimately foreign influence does exist to some extent, but studies and statistical analysis affirm its reach has been historically limited.
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