Wyden, Heinrich, Harris Request Declassification of Response to Questions About Chinese Interference in U.S. Elections
Washington, D.C. – Senate Intelligence Committee members Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., today called on the Director of National Intelligence to declassify a letter sent October 31, 2018, that responded to questions about whether China interfered in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats provided an unclassified response to those questions on February 8, which is available here. That unclassified letter did not address whether China interfered in 2016, as the president claimed. The senators’ request to declassify the October 31, 2018 letter also noted that it included important information about the 2018 elections.
“There may be no intelligence issue in which the public interest is stronger than foreign influence with regard to U.S. elections,” the senators wrote in a letter to DNI Coats. “It is critically important that the American people understand which specific activities each of our adversaries have or have not undertaken, and to what degree. The public’s capacity to recognize foreign influence efforts and the ability of elected officials to develop effective policy responses depend on this level of transparency.”
