Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei allegedly manipulated and influenced the US public before the 2020 Presidential Election, thus trying to undermine Americans’ faith in democracy, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released on Tuesday. Although the report clearly indicates the intervention, it does not include any specifics of how much the alleged meddling affected last year´s election.
Putin and his government are being accused of influencing the 2020 US Election in Trump´s favor by peddling misinformation about Biden and maneuvering multiple cyberattacks on social media platforms during the Biden Campaign, thus hurting him personally and politically. According to an article from Al Jazeera, Russia´s response stated there is “absolutely no foundation and evidence” of the claimed intervention and that “further sanctions would harm US-Russian relations”. After the publishing of the US intelligence report, Biden said Putin will pay a price for his actions. Actual proof has not been released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence yet.
The Iranian involvement in the allegations were reported by Reuters indicating that Ayatollah Khamenei and his government was trying to “undercut Trump” because of his aggressive sanctions against Iran while he was President. Any specifics about the Iranian meddling are not mentioned, only the intentions.
It is interesting to see foreign powers trying to influence such an important event such as the 2020 US Presidential election, taking sides and trying to hurt American democracy. It does not come as a big surprise, as we have experienced similar attempts during the previous US election in 2016. I would be interested in future findings of how much the interventions influenced the election, but as it was reported before, this election has been one of the safest elections that have taken place in the history of the United States of America.
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