Senate Intel chair frets about foreign actors spreading hurricane, election misinformation

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Tuesday indicated that he is concerned foreign actors are spreading misinformation related to the recovery from a pair of recent hurricanes and will be ramping up efforts amid the final election sprint. 

Warner lamented the situation in southwest Virginia, which has been consumed by misinformation about efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to aid recovery after Hurricane Helene decimated parts of the region.

“I tried to make the case that as we move FEMA in now, this isn’t charity. This is your right as an American,” Warner told reporters at the Capitol. “It’s almost cruel to think that people are spreading lies that will, in many cases, preclude Americans from getting what is their right, to get this assistance.”

When asked how much of that information is coming from outside the U.S., the Intel chairman said that he suspects that is the case and hopes to know more when he receives his next classified briefing. 

“That is a great question and my guess is it’s being amplified,” he said. “I would be, frankly, surprised if it was not being amplified.”

Misinformation surrounding the recovery efforts prompted FEMA to take the unprecedented action of launching a “rumor response” page on its website, which pushes individuals to only share information from verified sources and tries to shoot down falsehoods and rumors. 

Among the claims FEMA has tried to dispel is that the agency does not have requisite funds to help with disaster assistance and that it was asking for cash donations and spurning volunteer help. All three were false. 

Multiple lawmakers from affected regions have also tried to shoot down remarks calling into question the response by the Biden administration, especially those by pro-Trump forces. 

The Virginia Democrat also said much of his concern surrounding the election is how the misinformation campaign will take hold once the polls close on election night and the ensuing days if the race between Vice President Harris and former President Trump is not called. 

“I think post-2020, we know that the most dangerous time may be the days right after the polls close because of the ability then to use AI – have somebody that looks like an election official that could appear to be destroying ballots,” Warner said, calling that possibility a “problem.” 

“That could create violence in the street,” he added. 

The question for Warner is when to clamp down on those bad actors to give them little ability to reemerge and affect the election.

“The bad guys ramp up their efforts the closer we get. … There’s always a question of when you move in terms of aggressively shutting down some of the known entities because they can reconstitute themselves,” Warner said. “We’re now that zone where I’m pushing the [intelligence community] to — if we know where some of this is originating from or some of these sites, we ought to be moving aggressively because can the bad guys then reconstitute quickly enough to get back up and operational? There is that balance.”