President Trump is again trying to sow doubt in the election process in the United States. For perspective, Geoff Bennett spoke with Sue Gordon. She spent 30 years in the intelligence community, serving as principal deputy director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, the highest-ranking career intelligence official in the country at the time.
Geoff Bennett:
For perspective, we turn now to Sue Gordon. She spent 30 years in the intelligence community, serving as principal deputy director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, the highest-ranking career intelligence official in the country at that time.
Sue Gordon, welcome back to the “News Hour.”
Sue Gordon, Former U.S. Principal Deputy of National Intelligence: Thanks. Glad to be here.
Geoff Bennett:
The president in his speech last night focused heavily on China and what he described as newly revealed intelligence about the 2020 election. Based on what has been made public, did you hear anything that changes the intelligence community’s fundamental assessment of what happened in 2020?
Sue Gordon:
No, on three levels.
Number one, that China and other nation-states are interested in influencing our elections to achieve their purposes is not new. It’s something we have been focused on specifically since 2016. So the idea that they also want to pursue advantage through that route is not new.
I didn’t see anything or hear anything that surprised me. And the other thing is, I think people just need to know, intelligence is just the beginning of a process. Intelligence is simply intent. So it is a long way, even if there are new data there, from new data that says China has an intent to do something to getting to an activity, to an impact and to an outcome.
And so 2020 is settled. It’s settled, right? There’s just nothing in there that changes that. But it’s not just the intelligence assessment of intention. It is the far broader assessment that we looked at the election, and it was sound, and saw no evidence of impact.
Geoff Bennett:
The president also suggested that intelligence about China was in some way suppressed or kept from him.
Sue Gordon:
Yes.
Geoff Bennett:
You served as principal deputy director of national intelligence during his first term.
How plausible is it that intelligence of this significance would have been deliberately withheld from the president?
Sue Gordon:
Now, remember, I’m of that community and believe in those women and men who sign up for the — to support the Constitution, but it’s — it makes no sense.
So, first, let’s go back to 2016, where the intelligence community was screaming at the top of its lungs of Russian intention to influence our elections beginning of the first Trump administration. So it has from that point been an incredible focus of the intelligence community.
And the other thing I think that gets lost when President Trump talks about himself and that people are interested in harming him, when intelligence looks at activities, it is those activities that are intended to undermine our nation, our democracy.
So the idea that you would have this group of people who spend their lives keeping America safe for democracy would somehow keep information about foreign attempts to undermine that same thing they serve is just — doesn’t work.
And look at 2016 with how much effort we put into it, even though in those years President Trump wasn’t as interested in hearing it from us.
Geoff Bennett:
Is there an irony here, an unfortunate irony, that by repeatedly suggesting that American elections are in some way compromised, that the president is advancing one of the objectives by countries like Russia and China, objectives that they have pursued?
Sue Gordon:
Yes, 100 percent.
And I think — I think — I’m pretty sure I said it to President Trump in the first administration, and I will say it again. The grand bargain of a democracy is that anyone can run for office and everyone accepts the outcome. And when things happen to change that bargain and let Americans believe that maybe that’s not true, that has served the purpose of our adversaries and competitors.
And so they don’t even have to achieve any real effect if we just increasingly distrust that which is so fundamental to who we are. In other words, the greatest threat to America is that we stop believing in ourselves. And when the president sows this kind of, in my estimation, ill-founded discontent about our institutions, he’s in fact done that work.
Geoff Bennett:
One thing that can be confusing for the American people who are watching all of this unfold is that there is this conflation of a very real intelligence threat posed by China and all of these claims that aren’t supported by the evidence.
So, how do you separate legitimate concerns about foreign influence and cyber vulnerabilities from unsupported claims that an election result was in some way corrupted?
Sue Gordon:
Yes, so that’s a really great question.
I think the intelligence community can be accused of being arcane in its language sometimes, but it is very transparent about how much work is going on by adversaries to influence our campaign, and that is by supporting different candidates, by putting money into our system, to getting information to understand how they might shape what our voters believe.
That’s influence. And that is very real, very possible, very aggressive, and hard to counter, because that is just working democracy the way it works.
The other piece is interference, and that is physically doing damage and changing one vote for A to one vote to B. That is really hard to do. And, again, since 2016, there’s been so much work. The beginning of this episode on “News Hour” was very clear in terms of how much work has been — gone on to make sure that our election process is secure.
And the other thing that’s really a strength of our election process is that it is run locally. And so the idea that someone would be able to get into it and create a systemic effect that would matter is vanishingly small, even though you have to watch it all the time.
But, right now, I just think that difference between influence, which is shaping opinion, which is going on right now, and interference, which is changing outcome, is still very clear and where our assessment falls.
Geoff Bennett:
Sue Gordon, always good to speak with you. Thanks for joining us.
Sue Gordon:
You bet. Great to see you.
