VOA專訪凱瑟琳·赫裡奇 解密中國影響美國選舉的“多領域”行動

美國之音專訪資深調查記者凱瑟琳·赫裡奇，討論特朗普關於選舉誠信的演講及解密的情報檔案。赫裡奇指出，中國對2020年美國大選實施了最大規模的多領域影響力行動，並有情報官員壓制相關情報。訪談還探討了選民登記檔案外洩、FBI官員言論、影響力行動與選舉干預的區別，以及對美中關係和民主制度的長遠影響。

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Welcome to VOA Today. I'm pleased to be joined by veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, known for her long-time reporting on national security and intelligence. Following President Trump's address on election integrity and the release of the classified intelligence documents, we will discuss what they reveal and what they could mean for U.S. elections and U.S.-China relations. Ms. Herridge, welcome to Voice of America. Thank you for having me.

President Trump focused on election integrity in his national address on July the 16th. From your perspective, what were the key messages he wanted his audience to take away? Well, President Trump had really, I think, three key messages. One, he said that over 200 million voter registration files had been obtained by China. He also said that there were more than a quarter of a million registered voters who were not U.S. citizens. And I think most importantly, he claimed that intelligence about China's multi-domain influence operation in 2020 had been suppressed by the U.S. intelligence community. And he did something that I had never seen a U.S. president do before. He gave a public address, then they started releasing the documents so that the public could decide for themselves whether these were credible and verifiable claims.

It seems to me that the president raised a concern not only about the foreign influence operation but also how this related intelligence was handled within the U.S. government. Based on your reporting and your sources in intelligence community, what have you learned and what role did the whistleblower play? Well earlier this year in about april i reported for the first time that there was a whistleblower within the u.s intelligence community who had credible allegations that intelligence about china's influence operation in 2020 considered to be the most massive influence operation of that campaign had been suppressed by the u.s intelligence community at that time when i I was actually under a lot of pressure to wait until after the president met with China's leadership, the summit. Yes, that's correct. I may, but I proceeded with the report. And I think that this whistleblower and these revelations really started to drive the pressure for the release of these documents. Because as you look at the documents, what you see just in black and white, you see intelligence officials massaging information. There's a very famous file that says we're going to massage intelligence about the president's daily brief and for your audience the president's daily brief is one of the most highly classified reports that's provided to the president of the united states and in this case they had intelligence about china's influence operation and they were separating it or disconnecting it from the election itself so if you're a policy maker or a decision maker like president trump you're not really able to I think we will be able to put the two together.

Right, we know that since the president's speech more documents have been released by the White House. Just like you said, those emails released by the White House and one of the emails, the classified email mentioned about the massaging Presidents daily brief, PDB to avoid direct link to the election. That's correct. What have you learned from those emails? Well there's another... Can they tell us more? Sure, there's another email which I think really stands out and it's from a very senior FBI official who's identified in the records as Nikki Flores and she's sending what we would call in the U.S. Slack messages or instant messages at a workplace and she brags, I'm running a shadow government here at the FBI and in the same series of messages, she talks about how all FBI personnel have to take intelligence about the election and send it to headquarters to kind of control the kind of information that's going from the fbi to other agencies and then also to the white house so this idea that senior civil servants people who work within the government would be deciding what kind of information would reach policymakers including the president of the united states that's a clear violation of what the public expects from these officials.

that voter registration or voting could be potentially altered. What evidence has been made public to support this?

I think the big picture here is that China, the Chinese Communist Party, is really the global leader in collecting information, especially about American citizens. You can't see what happened in 2020 in isolation. The president has said, and I think it's borne out by the records, over 200 million voter files were obtained by China either bought stolen or hacked. If you think back to 2015, China is blamed for one of the worst security breaches in U.S. history, which was the compromise of security clearance applications, what's known as the SF-86. It was another 22 million files. We've had breaches of credit agencies, which has your whole banking history, your employment history, your financial history. We've had breaches of medical care websites. When you take all of that information and you compile it together, you're able to create a digital profile of an American citizen, and this has been China's, the CCP's, long-time goal to exploit these files to be able to identify targets not only for voter registration fraud, identity theft, but also for blackmail.

So could they recruit these Americans to become agents for the CCP so they can do a lot of things with this 220 million voters files? And it's part of this continuum of collection by the CCP. We've been kind of in a race against time, who will develop the technology whether it's AI or another technology to really exploit this huge amount of data. But once China is able to really exploit the data, they're able to build these digital profiles of Americans.

OK, not only in the States, but also in Taiwan. I'm very curious because in Taiwan, recent years they have experienced some of these activities, but in fact, these operations were not very successful, even counterproductive. So my question is, according to your reporting, and your research, considering the external environment and actual development, do the methods and impacts of these influence operations differ between the United States and Taiwan?

I think it's important to explain to people that there's a distinction between an influence operation and election interference. An influence operation is designed to change public opinion, affect the way people see a candidate or how they decide to vote. Election interference is about physically accessing voter systems, manipulating voter data or voter files. I think what's key about 2020 is that essential intelligence about the largest influence operation targeting the U.S. elections was suppressed and kept from decision makers. And this creates a tremendous gap in our understanding about what happened in 2020. I think that in many cases, these influence operations feel a little ham-fisted, if you know what I mean by that term, a little awkward, not very convincing, very amateurish even. I think in that respect, they're not always very effective. But the long term goal of an adversarial nation like China or Russia or Iran is to actually undermine confidence in our democratic institutions. That's really what it's all about. It's not so much they want a certain politician or they want a certain party, they want to undermine Americans' belief in the democratic process and our democratic institutions.

Catherine, you mentioned two different things here, influence operation and interference operation. Actually, President Trump also mentioned Russia, Iran, North Korea in his national address, but mainly the focus is on China. So my question is, why now? Because we know that President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Washington, D.C. in September, and why at this moment, President Trump kind of like single out China, other than Russia, Iran and North Korea?

I think it was long overdue. I think that what people underestimate is that the CCP, the PRC's campaign in 2020 was the largest of all of our adversaries. It was larger than Iran, it was larger than Russia, it was larger than North Korea. I think also that there's a convergence of events. I do think this whistleblower reporting I got out in April, the suppression of this intelligence really kind of unlocked things and helped move it forward. I don't think it was that alone. I think there's also the timing with the midterms approaching and this administration is making a big bid to try and get Congress to pass something called the SAVE Act. And this is an act which will require identification to vote as an American citizen, and there's been a lot of resistance in the Senate, it may not get passed before the midterms. And I think finally there is a sense that the midterms is the next real test. What we have seen in the intelligence is that what happened in 2020 was not in isolation. There was also activity, pretty significant activity by China, by the CCP in 2018. So we have to anticipate that there may be something very similar just a few months from now.

Catherine, finally, I would like to ask about the impact this discussion could have, not only in the U.S. elections, public confidence in our elections, 香港典威worrying about U.S.-China relations. What issues should our viewers continue to watch going forward?

I think one of the big takeaways here is that these activities, these very negative activities by the CCP—I'm making a distinction with the Chinese people—by the CCP is very destructive, and it's not only aimed at the United States, but it's also aimed at our allies. China uses many malign influence tactics, and under these circumstances, how can we counter this and maintain our democratic systems? I think this is an issue where the United States and its allies can really rally together.

Ms. Herridge, thank you so very much for joining us and sharing your insights. We really appreciate your time.

Thank you for having me. Thank you.