Nearly 100 Former National Security Officials Urge Congress To Take Urgent Action To Protect Elections

Nearly 100 erstwhile nationalist information officials from some parties are informing that Congress indispensable support US elections arsenic a nationalist information issue.

The erstwhile nationalist information officials who are led by Gen. Michael Hayden; erstwhile DNI James Clapper; DHS Secretaries Chertoff and Napolitano; DOD Secretary Cohen; John Bellinger III (legal advisor to NSC and DOS) wrote successful an open letter:

We are erstwhile elder nationalist information officials who person served Democrats, Republicans, oregon administrations of some parties. We constitute to explicit our alarm astatine ongoing efforts to destabilize and subvert our elections, some done progressive disinformation campaigns and the related efforts to inject partisan interference into our professionally administered predetermination process.

We judge these efforts are profoundly damaging to our nationalist security, including by making our elections much susceptible to overseas interference and imaginable manipulation. We telephone connected Congress to face these threats and safeguard our antiauthoritarian process arsenic we look up to the 2022 elections and beyond.

The officials are arguing that predetermination information is not a partisan governmental issue. Election information is nationalist security. The officials warned that the continued weakening of the US predetermination strategy would marque America much susceptible to governmental unit and manipulation from hostile overseas actors.

Americans person already seen the harm that overseas predetermination interference tin origin during the 2016 election, and they person witnessed antecedently unimaginable governmental unit astatine the Capitol connected January 6, 2021.

Democracy isn’t conscionable escaped and just elections. It is besides a captious constituent of US nationalist security, truthful erstwhile Republicans similar Trump onslaught the predetermination system, they are weakening America.