Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) is warning foreign governments against efforts to interfere in the upcoming presidential election.
“Foreign interference in the U.S. electoral process represents an assault of the American people and their constitutional right to vote,” Biden said in a lengthy statement on Monday. “They undermine the vote and the choice of every U.S. citizen. They attack our very way of life.”
The presumptive Democratic nominee cited warnings by intelligence officials that foreign agents were actively disseminating false information about COVID-19 and trying to interfere in the upcoming elections.
Read the statement below:
NEW: @JoeBiden issues a lengthy statement on foreign interference in U.S. elections
— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) July 20, 2020
"…I am putting the Kremlin and other foreign governments on notice," Biden says, adds that he will take interference as an "adversarial act" that weakens U.S. relations w/ interfering country pic.twitter.com/WxM9ntQBwc
He also hit President Donald Trump for what he said was an inadequate response to their efforts. “The Trump administration has thus far failed to make adequate use of these authorities to deter foreign election interference.”
“Instead, President Trump has repeatedly denied that Russia interfered in our elections, most egregiously during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July, 16, 2018.”
“In spite of President Trump’s failure to act, America’s adversaries must not misjudge the resolve of the American people to counter every effort by a foreign power to interfere in our democracy,” Biden said.
He added, “That is why, today, I am putting the Kremlin and other foreign governments on notice. If elected president, I will treat foreign interference in our election as an adversarial act that significantly affects the relationship between the United States and the interfering nation’s government.”
Biden said he would order the Intelligence Community to compile a report on nations that interfered, or tried to, in the election. He also vowed to “leverage all appropriate instruments of national power” to “impose substantial and lasting costs on state perpetrators.”
“I have no desire to escalate tensions with Russia or any other country, I would prefer to the focus full energies of my administration on bringing the international community together to fight COVID-19 and the economic pain it has caused,” Biden said.
“But if any foreign power recklessly chooses to interfere in our democracy, I will not hesitate to respond as president to impose substantial and lasting costs,” he added.
Biden’s statement comes the same day as a letter from top Congressional Democrats to FBI Director Christopher Wray that called for a “defensive counterintelligence briefing to all Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election” was released.
“We are gravely concerned, in particular, that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Given the seriousness and specificity of these threats, as members of congressional leadership and the congressional intelligence committees we believe it is imperative that the FBI provide a classified defensive briefing to all Members of Congress,” they added.