US Intelligence Agencies Warned Trump That Giuliani Was A Conduit For Russian Disinformation

US media is report­ing that US intel­li­gence agen­cies warned the White House late last year that Russ­ian intel­li­gence offi­cers were using Pres­i­dent Trump’s per­son­al lawyer Rudolph W. Giu­liani as a means to trans­mit dis­in­for­ma­tion aimed at under­min­ing the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Joe Biden. Accord­ing to the New York Times report:

Oct. 15, 2020  Wash­ing­ton — The intel­li­gence agen­cies warned the White House late last year that Russ­ian intel­li­gence offi­cers were using Pres­i­dent Trump’s per­son­al lawyer Rudolph W. Giu­liani as a con­duit for dis­in­for­ma­tion aimed at under­min­ing Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pres­i­den­tial run, accord­ing to four cur­rent and for­mer Amer­i­can offi­cials. The agen­cies impart­ed the warn­ing months before dis­clos­ing pub­licly in August that Moscow was try­ing to inter­fere in the elec­tion by tak­ing aim at Mr. Biden’s cam­paign, the offi­cials said. Mr. Trump and Mr. Giu­liani have pro­mot­ed unsub­stan­ti­at­ed claims about Mr. Biden that have aligned with Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts, and Mr. Giu­liani has met with a Ukrain­ian law­mak­er whom Amer­i­can offi­cials believe is a Russ­ian agent. Robert C. O’Brien, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, pre­sent­ed the warn­ing about Mr. Giu­liani to Mr. Trump in Decem­ber. Two for­mer offi­cials gave con­flict­ing accounts about its nature. One said the report was pre­sent­ed to Mr. Trump as unver­i­fied and vague, but anoth­er said the intel­li­gence agen­cies had devel­oped sol­id and cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion that Mr. Giu­liani was being “worked over” by Russ­ian oper­a­tives. Mr. Trump shrugged it off, offi­cials said, but the first for­mer offi­cial cau­tioned that his reac­tion could have been col­ored in part by oth­er infor­ma­tion giv­en to him not long before that appeared to back some of Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ukraine. The specifics of that mate­r­i­al were unclear.

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The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has been report­ing exten­sive­ly on Russ­ian infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions aimed at dis­rupt­ing the US elec­tions and in favor of Don­ald Trump.