Trump Administration Cuts Teams That Fight Foreign Election Interference

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By Colby Itkowitz, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Sarah Ellison and Patrick Marley

The Trump administration this week eliminated much of the federal government’s front line of defense against foreign interference in U.S. elections.

The move, which follows years of Trump and his allies disputing the role that Russian influence campaigns played in his first successful bid for president, alarmed state election officials and election security experts, who warned that safeguarding Americans from foreign disinformation campaigns will be difficult if no one at the federal level is doing that work.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved an FBI task force formed in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections that worked to uncover covert efforts by Russia, China, Iran and other foreign adversaries to manipulate U.S. voters.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter Wednesday placing at least seven federal employees who work on teams combating foreign disinformation within the election security arm of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, on administrative leave, according to a recipient who shared a copy of the letter with The Washington Post.

“This is an invitation for more foreign interference,” said Lawrence Norden, vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Bondi announced the shuttering of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a policy memo outlining a shift in the Justice Department’s priorities. The directive said the team was being shut down “to free resources to address more pressing priorities and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”

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