U.S. intelligence finds Cuba tried to influence Florida races during 2022 elections
The Cuban government conducted influence operations in the United States “aimed at denigrating specific U.S. candidates in Florida” during the 2022 midterm elections, the U.S. intelligence community said in a report published Monday evening.
The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that Cuban officials worked to build relationships with members of the American media who held critical views of Havana’s critics in Congress, and that a network of social media accounts “almost certainly covertly tied” to Cuba “amplified derogatory content” on U.S. politicians viewed as hostile to the Cuban state.
The declassified portion of the intelligence assessment does not name any specific individuals who were targeted, and much of the report’s section on Cuba’s activities are redacted. The assessment also does not say how effective Havana’s influence campaign was on Florida’s elections.
But the intelligence assessment only notes a handful of countries with targeted campaigns against the American democratic system, including Russia, China, Iran and Cuba.
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In general, the assessment reads, the intelligence community believes that Cuba’s efforts were “smaller in scale and more narrowly targeted” than the other three.
“We assess that Cuba attempted to undermine the electoral prospects of specific U.S. congressional and gubernatorial politicians that it viewed as hostile,” the report said.
“The Cuban government sought to influence perceptions of politicians belonging to both major U.S. political parties,” the report continued. “Public Cuban government statements indicate that Havana views Cuban-Americans in Miami as having an outsized influence on U.S. policy in Cuba.”
The report was produced by the National Intelligence Council alongside the entire range of U.S. intelligence agencies, including offices at the CIA, NSA, DHS, FBI, State Department and Treasury Department.
This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 7:20 PM.
