New DHS report warns of ongoing ‘heightened threat environment’ ahead of presidential election

By Holmes Lybrand, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The threat environment in the United States “remains high” ahead of the November presidential election and conflict in the Middle East, according to a new assessment by the Department of Homeland Security.

The annual assessment released Wednesday warns of possible threats from violent extremists driven by the heated political environment in the US as well as foreign and domestic threats from terrorist groups and others inspired by conflicts abroad. It also comes amid a wider conflict in the Middle East after Israel assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and began a ground offensive in Lebanon. Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel.

A senior DHS official told reporters Wednesday that the department is still working to figure out what Iran’s escalatory attack on Israel in recent days could mean for US security.

“It’s of course true that events in the Middle East over the last 12 months have contributed to this heightened threat environment and continue to do so, and we’re in a constant effort to evaluate and monitor what’s happening abroad to determine what implications it has for here in the homeland,” the official said.

The official also noted that the attack from Iran, paired with the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel last year, could “drive particular violent extremists here in the homeland to accelerate or look to take action on a timeline that may not have been anticipated.”

“We are literally in the earliest days of trying to understand what exactly Iranian intentions might be,” the official said.

Some of those intentions of Iran and other countries, according to officials and the report itself, are to sow confusion and chaos in the US 2024 presidential election.

“China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, undeclared, criminal, and coercive tactics to seek new opportunities to undermine confidence in US democratic institutions and domestic social cohesion,” the report warns.

Threats to elections, according to the department’s report, manifest in a variety of ways, including misinformation from foreign actors attempting to confuse voters about when and where they should go to place their vote.

On the cyber front, US officials expect Chinese government-backed hackers to continue their efforts to burrow into critical US computer networks for leverage in the event of a conflict with the United States, the assessment said, calling that development a top concern. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress in January that the hackers are “preparing to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm” should China choose to attack US critical infrastructure.

Other potential threats, however, could come from inside the US, as they did in 2020.

“We have seen threats against election workers, we’ve seen white powder letters sent to election workers to scare them,” the official said. “And we’re concerned that election workers, on the day of the election, might be subject to threats.”

The report warns that, during the election, domestic violent extremists “will pose the most significant physical threat to government officials, voters, and elections-related personnel and infrastructure, including polling places, ballot drop box locations, voter registration sites, campaign events, political party offices, and vote counting sites.”

The report says that anti-government or anti‑authority violent extremists who are likely to be inspired by “partisan policy grievances or conspiracy theories” pose the most significant threat.

“We have also recently observed a rise in disruptive tactics targeting election officials and offices—like those observed in past election cycles—including hoax bomb threats, swatting, doxxing, and mailing white powder letters, intended to instill fear and disrupt campaign and election operations,” the report says.

CNN’s Sean Lyngaas contributed to this report.

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