The intelligence community will not meet the Dec. 18 deadline set by an executive order to report on foreign threats during this year’s election, according to the The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), but a report could come by next month.
The agency’s Director John Ratcliffe had previously indicated a report would come out in January proving that there was foreign interference in the 2020 election.
“DNI Ratcliffe … has access to the most highly classified information that is held by the U.S. government and he told CBS News that there was foreign election interference by China, Iran, and Russia in November of this year,” CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge told CBSN on Dec. 3.
“He is anticipating a public report on those findings in January,” she added.
ODNI spokeswoman Amanda Schoch said in a Dec. 16 statement that they were notified of the delay “by career intelligence officials.” She confirmed the report includes information about “relevant” foreign threats from the recent election. The ODNI office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
“The IC has received relevant reporting since the election and a number of agencies have not finished coordinating on the product,” Schoch said, adding that Ratcliffe remains committed to an expeditious release of the report.
Dec. 18 marks 45 days after the Nov. 3 general election, when, according to Trump’s executive order in 2018, the DNI was expected to deliver a report detailing “to the maximum extent ascertainable” whether any interference attempts took place, and the nature of such interference, methods used, and who was involved and authorized such efforts.
But the order also states that information provided to the president does not have to come from an official DNI report: “Nothing in this order shall prevent the head of any agency or any other appropriate official from tendering to the President, at any time through an appropriate channel, any analysis, information, assessment, or evaluation of foreign interference in a United States election.”
The order directs the U.S. government to impose automatic sanctions on foreign nations, individuals, and entities who are found to be involved in attempts to interfere in U.S. elections.
In a Dec. 3 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Ratcliffe said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.”
“The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically,” he wrote. “Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Ratcliffe’s comments on China reflect those of others in the intelligence community. William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an August statement that the U.S. government is “primarily concerned about the ongoing and potential activity by China, Russia, and Iran” when it comes to election interference.
Evanina said the Chinese Communist Party had been “expanding its influence efforts” before the November election in order to “shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and deflect and counter criticism of China.”
Attorney Sidney Powell, who has filed a number of election-related lawsuits in multiple states, said there is more than enough evidence to prompt President Donald Trump to use his 2018 executive order on foreign interference. She said the order would give him a range of authorities.
“Given the level of foreign interference we can demonstrate, and the country has evidence of in our filings of foreign interference in the election, it’s more than sufficient to trigger the President’s executive order from 2018 that gives him all kinds of power—to do everything from seize assets, to freeze things, demand the impoundment of the machines,” Powell told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program.
“Under the emergency powers, he could even appoint a special prosecutor to look into this, which is exactly what needs to happen,” she added.
Powell also asserted that the CCP may have played a role in influencing the election: “We know that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ballots imported into the country, likely from China. We have video of some coming across the border from Mexico.”
The DNI report, Powell believes, will have huge implications.
“If that report is an honest report, it’s going to blow the mind of every citizen in the country who’s willing to look at the truth and the facts, because we’ve never witnessed anything like this in the history of this country,” she said. “And it’s got to be stopped right now or there will never be a free and fair election.”
Among the most troubling machine irregularities found so far is through Dominion Voting Systems, Powell asserted. On Dec. 14, a forensic audit of Dominion machines and software in Michigan showed the machines were designed to create “systematic fraud” and “influence election results,” data firm Allied Security Operations Groups said in a preliminary report.
“We conclude that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results,” Russell Ramsland Jr., co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, said in the report.
“The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors. The electronic ballots are then transferred for adjudication,” he added. “The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail.”
During her interview, Powell mentioned one of her witnesses, an alleged whistleblower who has a background with the Venezuelan military, including the national security guard detail of the Venezuelan president. The whistleblower, according an affidavit, outlined an alleged conspiracy between Smartmatic software executives, former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and that country’s election officials to ensure Chavez won reelections and retained power for years.
The Epoch Times was not able to independently verify the claims.
In a Dec. 15 statement, Dominion refuted the data firm’s findings, saying there were “no software ‘glitches’ that ‘switched’ votes in Antrim County or anywhere else.” Dominion said the errors they identified in Antrim County “were isolated human errors not involving Dominion.” Dominion CEO John Poulos said on Dec. 15: “No one has produced credible evidence of vote fraud or vote switching on Dominion systems because these things have not occurred.”
Dominion, on its website, denies it has any connection with Smartmatic, while also refuting allegations that it manipulated the vote. Smartmatic’s website refutes any connections with Dominion and states that they have “no ties to governments or political parties.”
