President of the United States Joe Biden has once again extended the state of emergency in the country for a year due to the threat of foreign interference in the American elections. The corresponding statement was published on the White House website on Tuesday, September 7.
“I am extending by one year the national emergency regime declared by Executive Order 13848 regarding the threat or undermining of public confidence in US elections,” Biden announced.
The regime has been in effect since September 12, 2018. It provides a legal basis for the imposition of sanctions against those who are suspected in connection with an attempt to influence the electoral preferences of citizens or undermine the credibility of the US electoral system.
At the same time, in the text, Biden admitted that the American authorities have no evidence that any country influenced the results or distorted the vote count of any elections in the United States.
On July 27, Biden announced Russia’s attempts to influence the results of the US midterm elections, due in 2022, and to support Republican Donald Trump. In his speech, the president referred to some information from the national intelligence agencies, which reported that Moscow was allegedly already spreading disinformation and trying to influence the results of the US elections.
Earlier, on July 16, the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov denied information that Russian leader Vladimir Putin allegedly personally ordered the special services to support Republican Donald Trump in the upcoming election of the head of the American government, noting that this is “a complete lie.”
A day earlier, The Guardian stated that Putin allegedly personally gave permission for a secret operation to support Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.
According to the newspaper’s journalists, after one of the meetings of the Security Council, Putin allegedly issued a decree on the creation of a new secret interdepartmental commission, the urgent tasks of which are to implement plans concerning the United States, as well as to find ways to support Trump.
In turn, the head of the State Duma commission to investigate the facts of foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs, Vasily Piskarev, suggested that the reason for Biden’s accusations was an attempt to hide his own interference in the Russian elections.
In April 2019, the Russian embassy in the United States published a 120-page analysis of Moscow’s accusations of meddling in the American elections, proving their groundlessness.
The investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election began after Donald Trump’s victory. The American intelligence services announced Russia’s involvement in the hacking of computers of the National Committee of the US Democratic Party. Moscow has repeatedly denied these accusations, noting their lack of evidence.