Trump Administration Buried Report Indicating Likelihood of Russian Anti-Biden Efforts, ABC Says

Trump officials buried a report warning that Russia could attack Joe Biden's mental fitness in a bid to help President Donald Trump get reelected, according to ABC News.

The intelligence document languished behind closed doors for months after the Trump administration halted its publicatio, ABC said after review e-mails and documents.

The report, drafted by the Department of Homeland Security, states that intelligence officials have “high confidence” that Russia will attempt to portray Biden, the Democratic nominee, as mentally unfit for office in the hopes of getting Trump reelected. The document points to previous Russian efforts to portray Biden as suffering from early early dementia.

The document was meant to be distributed among law enforcement bodies on July 7, but Trump administration officials quickly intervened to suppress it. According to emails acquired by ABC news, DHS Chief of Staff John Gountanis indicated that the report should be kept pending review by the secretary of Homeland Security. That was two months ago.

Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said that “high confidence means what it sounds like – that they are highly confident that their assessment is accurate and they don’t use that language very often.”

The report warns that “Russian ... influence actors are likely to continue denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.” It specifically warns that Russia would attack Joe Biden.

The intelligence community has been aware of Russia's support of Donald Trump since at least 2017, when a report noted that "Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect Trump."

The buried report also mentions the potential for interference from Iran and China, two countries that view Trump as an opponent. But language within the report and the document’s title indicate that the authors see Russia as the most likely to act.

Trump and officials working for him have downplayed the threat of Russian interference. In an August 7 press conference at one of his golf resorts, Trump stated: “I think the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody’s been tougher on Russia than I have — ever. … I don’t care what anybody says.”

The Trump administration has also gone out of its way to highlight the findings that China and Iran have anti-Trump preferences. His opponents, however, say that these claims present a false equivalency.

This Friday, top Democrats said that the report compared foreign actors of “unequal intent, motivation and capability” and downplayed the Russia threat to the extent that its warnings were "so generic as to be meaningless."

This would not be the first time that the Trump administration has manipulated national security efforts for political gain.

John Cohen, former undersecretary for intelligence, told ABC News that “We are hearing concerns being raised publicly that, in this administration, intelligence community reporting is being modified or blocked for political reasons – or to not anger the president. Blocking information from being released that describes threats facing the nation undermines the ability of the public and state and local authorities to work with the federal government to counteract the threat.”