WASHINGTON – US intelligence chiefs said Tuesday that Russian attempts tomeddle in US politics are continuing unabated — and pose a threat tomid-term congressional elections in November.

They also said North Korea’s nuclear program poses a potential “existentialthreat” to the United States, and that the time is nearing for Washingtonto respond to that danger.

In a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the most urgent threatsfacing the country, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and theheads of the CIA, FBI, NSA and two other spy agencies were unanimous insaying that Moscow’s efforts to disrupt US politics are as intense now asthey were in the 2016 presidential election.

“Throughout the entire community, we have not seen any evidence of anysignificant change” in Russian behavior, said Coats.

“There should be no doubt that Russia perceived its past efforts assuccessful and sees the 2018 US midterms elections as a potential targetfor Russian influence operations,” he said.

“We have seen Russian activity and intentions to have an impact on the nextelection cycle here,” Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo said.

“This is not going to change or stop,” added National Security AgencyDirector Michael Rogers.

America’s leading intelligence agencies concluded last year that RussianPresident Vladimir Putin had directed a broad intelligence effort toinfluence the 2016 presidential election to undermine the campaign ofDemocrat Hillary Clinton and boost Donald Trump’s chances.

That effort included hacking and releasing emails and documents from theClinton campaign, filling social media with posts and “news” items aimed atdiscrediting her, as well as targeting voter-registration operations andelection databases.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea that Moscow helped him — and allallegations of collusion — as “fake news,” and criticized the intelligenceagencies for repeating it.

But a large volume of information has surfaced on Russian use of socialmedia to influence public opinion in US public policy debates.

“The Russians utilize this tool because it’s relatively cheap, it’s lowrisk, it offers what they perceive as plausible deniability, and it isproven to be effective at sowing division,” Coats told the Senate panel.

“We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flagpersonas, sympathetic spokesmen, and other means of influence to try tobuild on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and politicalfissures in the United States,” he said.

– ‘Existential threat’ –

On North Korea, Coats said its leader Kim Jong Un continues to demonstratea “provocative nature” and “instability” that makes Pyongyang’s nuclearcapability more threatening.

“This is an existential threat, potentially to the United States, but alsoto North Korea,” Coats said.

“Kim Jong Un views this as — any kind of a kinetic attack or effort toforce him to give up his nuclear weapons — is an existential threat to hisnation and to his leadership in particular,” he said.

“Our goal is a peaceful settlement,” he added. “We’re using maximumpressure on North Korea in various ways.”

On another issue, Coats stressed that the US government’s repeated failureto craft a full-year’s budget, and the large fiscal deficits, constituteanother important security threat.

“I’m concerned that our increasing fractious political process,particularly with respect to federal spending, is threatening our abilityto properly defend our nation both in the short term and especially in thelong term,” he said.

The mounting US debt, now over $20 trillion, is “unsustainable andrepresents a dire threat to our economic and national security.” – APP /AFP