Email — RE: Please Coord by COB 9/1: 4-Country Election Security Graphic (3 September 2020)

The NIO — Cyber expresses concern "about politics seeping into this," arguing there is no reason they can't say they have [X] confidence that China has a preference, and is "troubled by CIA's comments at the recent COI" (p.1).

The Director, Election Threat Analysis asks whether the community is "basically saying we should self-censor our assessment on preference because it could be misused" (p.1).

FBI (Unit Chief, Foreign Influence Task Force — China) concurs with CIA and INR edits; states the "preference line," when included as a top line in election-related products, "could imply the opposite of what community consensus seems to be — namely that activities are focused on policy preferences and that election related activity is not worth the risk" (p.3).

Repeated proposed sentence: "Unidentified pro-China influence actors [REDACTED] have been spreading English-language videos on US social media platforms that criticize the President's policies, promote socially divisive themes, and denigrate him" (p.4, p.9, p.13, p.16).

INR (INR/EAP, Department of State) states three concerns: (1) evidence for China not interfering is stronger than acknowledged, and the IC should make a judgment call rather than leave it to the reader; (2) China's influence efforts to shift public opinion on policy issues are not the same as election interference; (3) there is relative consensus within the China-watching community (INR, CIA, NSA, FBI) about how to describe China's activities, and NIC disagreement should be a standalone dissent rather than rewriting community consensus (p.7-8).

Multiple rounds of proposed language negotiate whether to say "China prefers that the President does not win reelection" versus "China is not at this time trying to influence the outcome"; agreed elements describe Beijing using "extensive lobbying, economic measures, information derived from computer network exploitation, and increasingly strident rhetoric" to press US officials and candidates, and "whole-of-government influence efforts ahead of November 2020" that "could be used to influence the 2020 election if Beijing directed Chinese officials to do so" (p.11-16).

Notes "the risk of being caught interfering in the US election outweighs any potential gains" as an assessed judgment; discussion of whether to keep or caveat this line (p.12-14).

Graphic covers Russia, China, Iran, and a fourth [REDACTED] country; comments requested by COB Tuesday 1 September; contains redacted material for Russia and China with serial numbers included for access verification (p.22).