Russia will more than likely try to meddle in the 2018 U.S midterm elections, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned in an interview Monday.
“The Russians have been at this a long time, and I fully expect they’ll continue to be at it,” Mr. Pompeo told BBC on the topic of Moscow’s state-sponsored information campaigns.
Asked whether he’s concerned Russia will target the November midterms, Mr. Pompeo replied: “Of course.”
“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I’m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust, that the impact they have on our election won’t be great,” said Mr. Pompeo, an Army veteran and former Republican congressman from Kansas.
The U.S. intelligence community during the Obama administration concluded that Russian operatives — including hackers, propagandists and professional social media trolls — participated in a state-sponsored interference campaign targeting the 2016 White House race and particularly Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Russia has denied meddling in the 2017 race. President Trump has publicly doubted the intelligence community’s findings, but the CIA said in November that Mr. Pompeo stands by the assessment attributing Russia with interfering in the 2016 election.
“I haven’t seen a significant decrease in their activity,” Mr. Pompeo said Monday.
“The Russians have a long history of these information campaigns. That part of it is not new. The technology that enables it is now cheap and plentiful, and the capability of transferring information around the world is much simpler than it was in World War II or decades ago,” Mr. Pompeo told BBC.
Indeed, internet companies including Google, Twitter and Facebook recently acknowledged that professional social media trolls linked to Russian intelligence operated accounts on their platforms were responsible for creating content that reached millions of users during the 2016 race.
“Based on your results, you’re not where you need to be for us to be reassured that you’re securing our democracy,” Sen. Brian Schatz, Hawaii Democrat, said during a science committee hearing on the topic last week. “How can we know that you’re going to get this right and before the midterms?”
“We think we’re better prepared for this election than we’ve ever been,” Carlos Monje, Twitter’s director of public policy, responded.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.