The FBI establishes a Foreign Influence Task Force within its Counterintelligence Division.
FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed the FITF’s creation in testimony to Congress.
“The FITF is led by the Counterintelligence Division and is comprised of agents, analysts, and
professional staff from the Counterintelligence, Cyber, Counterterrorism, and Criminal
Investigative Divisions,” Wray says.
“It is specifically charged with identifying and combating foreign influence operations targeting democratic institutions and values inside the United States. In all instances, the FITF strives to protect democratic institutions; develop a common operating picture; raise adversaries’ costs; and reduce their overall asymmetric advantage.
“The FITF brings the FBI’s national security and traditional criminal investigative expertise under one umbrella to prevent foreign influence in our elections. This better enables us to frame the threat, to identify connections across programs, to aggressively investigate as appropriate, and — importantly — to be more agile.
“Coordinating closely with our partners and leveraging relationships we have developed in the technology sector, we had several instances where we were able to quickly relay threat indicators that those companies used to take swift action, blocking budding abuse of their platforms.”
Source:
1.https://www.fbi.gov/counterintelligence/foreign-influence
2.https://www.justice.gov/testimony_of_wray_re_fbi_oversight.pdf
1. Since Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) is run out of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, is Venezuelan interference in American elections therefore considered a counterintelligence threat?
2. If so, what foreign intelligence services would be carrying out that threat? The Venezuelan intelligence service? The Cuban intelligence service? The Russian intelligence services? The Iranian intelligence services? The Chinese intelligence services?
3. Does the FITF know about the allegations made by the congresswoman Carolyn Maloney back in 2006 regarding the potential threat to national security from the voting system companies Sequoia and Smartmatic and their ties to the Chavist regime?
4. Is the FITF taking into consideration the possibility that the risk of foreign influence of U.S. voting system may not just be external threats of cyber-attacks against the voting infrastructure, but internally within the voting system companies themselves being maneuvered by foreign governments hostile to the United States?
5. Looking back since that time, did FITF ever investigate or warn about such a possibility?
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