Washington sources reported that the FBI, intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference. Christopher A. Wray, the FBI Director, said on Friday in a speech here that "We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game”, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin's record of malign influence operations.
He said "So we are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020". Apparently Wray's warnings came after the report by the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, laid out in hundreds of pages of detail the interference and influence campaign carried out by Russian operatives in the 2016 election. Furthermore "What has pretty much continued unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, etc. to spin us up, pit us against each other, to sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America's faith in democracy.
The FBI Director added "That is not just an election-cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365 day a year threat”. Perhaps in response to growing threats from Russia and other adversaries, the FBI recently moved nearly 40 agents and analysts to the counter-intelligence division.
