A former intelligence official examines Trump’s election security claims

President Trump is once again trying to sow doubt in the electoral process in the United States. For perspective, Jeff Bennett spoke with Sue Gordon. She spent 30 years in the intelligence community, serving as principal deputy director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, and was the nation’s highest-ranking career intelligence official at the time.

Jeff Bennett:

For perspective, we now turn to Sue Gordon. She spent 30 years in the intelligence community, serving as principal deputy director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, and was the nation’s highest-ranking career intelligence official at the time.

Sue Gordon, welcome back to The News Hour.

SUE GORDON, FORMER PRINCIPAL DEPUTY OF DISTRICT OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Jeff Bennett:

In his speech last night, the President focused largely on China and what he described as newly revealed intelligence about the 2020 election. Based on what’s been released, have you heard anything that changes the intelligence community’s basic assessment of what happened in 2020?

Sue Gordon:

No, on three levels.

First, the interest of China and other nation-states in influencing our elections for their own purposes is nothing new. It’s something we’ve been specifically focused on since 2016. So the idea that they would also want to gain advantage through that route is not new.

I didn’t see or hear anything that surprised me. The other thing is, I think people just need to know that intelligence is just the beginning of the process. Intelligence is simply intention. So, it’s a long way to go, even if there’s new data, from new data that says China has an intention to do something to get to the activity and the impact and the result.

And so 2020 was settled. It was settled, right? There’s nothing there to change that. But the matter is not limited to intelligence assessment of intentions. It’s the much broader assessment that we looked at in the election, and it was sound, and we saw no evidence of its impact.

Jeff Bennett:

The President also suggested that intelligence related to China was somehow suppressed or withheld from him.

Sue Gordon:

Yes.

Jeff Bennett:

She served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence during his first term.

How plausible is it to intentionally withhold such important intelligence from the president?

Sue Gordon:

Now, remember, I’m from this community and I believe in those women and men who signed up to — to support the Constitution, but — that doesn’t make any sense.

So, first, let’s go back to 2016, when the intelligence community was screaming at the top of its lungs about Russian intent to influence our elections at the beginning of the first Trump administration. So from that point on it became an incredible focus of the intelligence community.

And the other thing that I think gets lost when President Trump talks about himself and that people are interested in hurting him, when intelligence looks at the activities, those are the activities that are intended to undermine our nation and our democracy.

So the idea that you have this group of people who spend their lives keeping America safe for democracy would somehow hold information about foreign attempts to undermine the very thing they serve is just — it doesn’t work.

And look at 2016 with the amount of effort we put into it, even though President Trump in those years wasn’t interested in hearing it from us.

Jeff Bennett:

Is there an irony here, an unfortunate irony, that by repeatedly suggesting that the US election is in jeopardy in some way, the president is advancing one of the goals that countries like Russia and China have sought to achieve?

Sue Gordon:

Yes, 100 percent.

And I think – I think – I’m sure I said that to President Trump in the first administration, and I’ll say it again. The great bargain of democracy is that anyone can run for office, and that everyone accepts the outcome. When things happen that change that deal and make Americans think that maybe this isn’t true, that has served the purpose of our adversaries and competitors.

Thus, they won’t even have to make any real impact if we become increasingly distrustful of what is so fundamental to who we are. In other words, the greatest threat to America is that we stop believing in ourselves. When a president sows this kind of unfounded discontent, in my view, about our institutions, he has actually done the work.

Jeff Bennett:

The one thing that could be confusing for the American people watching all of this is that there’s this confusion between the real intelligence threat that China poses and all of these claims that are not supported by the evidence.

So how do you separate legitimate concerns about foreign influence and cyber vulnerabilities from unsupported claims that the election result was somehow corrupt?

Sue Gordon:

Yes, that’s a really great question.

I think the intelligence community could be accused of being vague in its language sometimes, but it is very transparent about the amount of work that adversaries do to influence our campaign, by supporting different candidates, by putting money into our system, to get information to understand how they might shape what our voters think.

This is leverage. This is very real, very possible, very aggressive, and difficult to confront, because that is democracy working the way it works.

The other part is interference, which is causing physical damage and changing one vote for “A” to one vote for “B.” This is really difficult. And again, since 2016, there has been a lot of work. The beginning of this episode of the News Hour was very clear in terms of the amount of work that has been done – and we continue to make sure our election process is secure.

The other thing that’s really a strength of our election process is that it’s locally run. So the idea that someone could go into this and create a significant systemic impact is very slim, even though you have to watch it all the time.

But, for the moment, I think the difference between influence, which shapes opinion, which is now occurring, and intervention, which changes the outcome, is still too clear and falls within our assessment.

Jeff Bennett:

Sue Gordon, always good to talk to you. Thank you for joining us.

Sue Gordon:

You bet. Great to see you.