The Federal Bureau of Investigation “doubled down on politicization and corruption” by concealing details of Iran’s election meddling operation that may have helped Kamala Harris’ campaign, according to a Republican congressman.
Significant concerns have arisen over potential foreign interference in the 2024 Presidential Election, with officials and analysts increasingly worried that campaigns could be affected, or voters influenced by hacking and sophisticated disinformation operations originating from Russia, China, and Iran.
However, despite several reports from the US intelligence community detailing these efforts, and criminal charges brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against several individuals, New York Representative Elise Stefanik believes questions still remain about Tehran’s influence operations.
“My job is to show the American people what the FBI failed to answer — and, I believe, deliberately covered up — about Iran’s influence in the 2024 presidential election,” Stefanik wrote in an op-ed Sunday for The Wall Street Journal.
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Stefanik, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he had requested additional information about Tehran’s actions from FBI Director Christopher Wray, after the bureau delivered a closed briefing on foreign election interference in late September.
While Stefanik said the FBI had promised to follow up on her request, she said it was now “silent,” and stonewalled her questions.
Stefanik’s 13 questions, published in her column, concern the Bureau’s knowledge of the mid-2024 hacks on the Trump campaign, and the exfiltration of campaign data that was later sent to individuals associated with the Biden campaign, as well as Politicsat Washington Post and on New York Times.
Newsweek has reached out to the FBI in response to Stefanik’s article, and asked if they would respond to her list of questions.
At the end of September, the DOJ unsealed an indictment charging three Iranian citizens for their role in the attack, which the department said formed “part of Iran’s continued efforts to accelerate disputes, erode confidence in the US election process.”
“The actions included in the indictment are just the latest example of Iranian brutality. So today the FBI wants to send a message to the Government of Iran—you and hackers can’t hide your keyboards,” FBI Director Wray said at the time.
However, according to Stefanik, the indictment provides insufficient details about the FBI’s investigation, suggesting that critical information is still being withheld from the American public.
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“The FBI can easily and quickly answer these questions without impeding the investigation or revealing confidential sources, methods or information,” Stefanik said. “The denial suggests that withholding information that would implicate the FBI—perhaps an attempt to influence the election when and to whom it was reported, or the involvement of Democratic presidential operatives in this foreign election meddling.”
According to Stefanik, this wouldn’t be the first time the FBI has been affected by “anti-Trump political bias.” He cited the 2016-2017 “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia, as well as the “censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
Stefanik continued: “We will not tolerate the rogue FBI withholding information on an issue as important as this—a foreign enemy trying to destroy, hack and kill a major presidential candidate.”
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