Yesterday, new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced plans to disband the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). Formed in the wake of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the FITF is charged with identifying and combating foreign influence operations targeting democratic institutions and values inside the United States.

The internet has opened broad new avenues for foreign interference in our elections and the FITF has been a vital partner to state and local governments to contend with the actions of sophisticated foreign actors. Since its creation, the FTIF has helped identify and defend against disinformation campaigns launched by bot farms, cyber-attacks against voting infrastructure, criminal efforts to suppress voter turnout and illegal efforts to inject foreign money into our elections.

Statement of Susannah Goodman, Common Cause Director of Election Security

Disbanding the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) would be a terrible mistake and leave our state and local election officials and infrastructure exposed to malicious foreign governments with vested interests in sowing discord and undermining faith in our democratic institutions. The FITF provides critical protection to safeguard our votes and our elections from the intelligence services of hostile foreign governments including Russia, China and Iran.

We know that foreign governments have been interfering in our elections for decades and even more expansively beginning during the 2016 election cycle. It is hard to imagine a more pressing priority than protecting our elections from foreign interference. State and local officials do tremendous work to secure our elections. But just as we would not expect state police to repel an invasion by a foreign government, state and local government officials need the federal government to partner with them on repelling foreign interference.

States and local officials – who run our elections – do not have the resources and expertise to go toe-to-toe with highly sophisticated foreign intelligence services. This is a role that can only be undertaken by the federal government and the FTIF has played a critical role in safeguarding our democracy.

The move to shutter the FTIF appears to be part of an effort by the U.S. government to pull back from protecting the states and municipalities from foreign interference. This is a trend that must be reversed. Our enemies are watching and waiting. Our democracy depends on these protections to keep our adversaries from undermining our country.