ARGUMENT: Putin’s long armSecret CIA Assessment: Putin “Probably Directing” Influence Operation to Denigrate Biden

Published 22 September 2020

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top aides are “probably directing” a Russian foreign influence operation to interfere in the 2020 presidential election against former vice president Joe Biden, a top-secret CIA assessment concluded. The Kremlin’s effort to undermine the Biden campaign involves Andriy Derkach, a prominent Ukrainian lawmaker who has been identified by the U.S. intelligence community as an agent of Russian intelligence, and who is a colleague of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. On 10 September the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach, alleging that he “has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top aides are “probably directing” a Russian foreign influence operation to interfere in the 2020 presidential election against former vice president Joe Biden, a top-secret CIA assessment concluded, according to two sources who reviewed it. Josh Rogin writes in the Washington Post that on Aug. 31, the CIA published an assessment of Russian efforts to interfere in the November election in an internal, highly classified report called the CIA Worldwide Intelligence Review, the sources said. CIA analysts compiled the assessment with input from the National Security Agency and the FBI, based on several dozen pieces of information gleaned from public, unclassified and classified intelligence sources.

“We assess that President Vladimir Putin and the senior most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia’s influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. Vice President, supporting the U.S. president and fueling public discord ahead of the U.S. election in November,” the first line of the document says, according to the sources.

The Kremlin’s effort to undermine the Biden campaign involves Andriy Derkach, a prominent Ukrainian lawmaker who has been identified by the U.S. intelligence community as an agent of Russian intelligence, and who is a colleague of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Derkach and Giuliani have been working in tandem on disseminating false information, cooked up by the GRU, Russia’ military intelligence branch, on Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian gas company and Joe Biden’s supposed involvement. Derkach’s false information serves as the basis for the investigation now conducted by Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) into the Bidens.

In addition to aiming to tarnish Biden’s reputation, the false information Derkach has been feeding the Johnson investigation helps advance a second goal: The conspiracy theory promoted by Trump – and publicly supported by Putin – that it was Ukraine, not Russia, which was behind the 2016 interference in the U.S. election. This conspiracy theory has been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. intelligence community, and debunked.

Rogin notes that

On Sept. 10, following calls from Democratic lawmakers, the Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach, alleging that he “has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a Sept. 10 statement that “Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.” The Treasury Department stated Derkach “waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election,” which he did by releasing edited audio tapes and other unsupported information that were then pushed in Western media.

Derkach is a former member of a pro-Russian party who attended the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow, but Giuliani has consistently defended his relationship with Derkach. Following the Treasury Department’s announcement sanctioning Derkach, Giuliani told the New York Times he had “no reason to believe [Derkach] is a Russian agent,” but added, “How the hell would I know?”