Hegseth orders military intelligence to guard against foreign midterm meddling
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Pentagon's intelligence and cyber agencies to treat election security as a priority ahead of the 2026 midterms, calling it a «no-fail mission». The military's role is limited to foreign threats, while domestic election administration remains with states and federal civilian agencies.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon's intelligence and cyber agencies to make the protection of the 2026 midterm elections from foreign interference a priority, describing the effort as a «no-fail mission». The September directive reaches well beyond U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, instructing the entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise, including the agencies responsible for military and geospatial intelligence, to «mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership» against foreign election threats.
The order comes as Americans prepare to vote on Tuesday and as the military's election-security role has expanded considerably since Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. It is unclear how much the directive has changed the Pentagon's existing operations. The Department of War declined to provide Fox News Digital with details on how the order is being implemented, and Cyber Command declined an interview request about its election-security efforts.
In practice, the directive can mean that military intelligence agencies identify foreign hackers or influence operations overseas, warn civilian agencies about threats aimed at U.S. targets and, when authorized, have Cyber Command act against the foreign actors or infrastructure behind them. The military's role largely stops at the U.S. border. State and local officials run elections, while the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security handle the domestic side.
The Pentagon's involvement is not new. Cyber Command and the NSA have spent years tracking and disrupting foreign threats around American elections, including operations targeting Russian actors in previous cycles. The effort took its current shape ahead of the 2018 midterms, when the agencies formed a «Russia Small Group» focused on foreign interference. It later evolved into a joint Election Security Group that combines the NSA's intelligence-gathering capabilities with Cyber Command's ability to conduct operations against foreign cyber threats.
By 2022, then-Cyber Command and NSA chief Gen. Paul Nakasone was describing election security as an «enduring, no-fail mission», language Hegseth echoed four years later. After the 2022 election, Nakasone said, «Rest assured, we were doing operations well before the midterms began, and we were doing operations likely on the day of the midterms,» describing the military's role as «understanding your foreign adversaries and operating outside the United States». The agencies again established an Election Security Group for the 2024 presidential election, but it has been less clear whether that structure was recreated for this year's midterms.
Gen. Joshua Rudd, the current head of Cyber Command and the NSA, told lawmakers in April that foreign interference was «reasonable to expect based on what we've seen in the past» and said his command was «postured and ready to support as required or tasked». He said at the time he was unsure whether the Election Security Group had been reconvened.
Five months later, Hegseth issued his department-wide directive, addressed not only to Cyber Command and the NSA but also to the directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The order instructs military intelligence agencies to collect and analyze intelligence on foreign election threats, and directs Cyber Command to use its existing authorities and capabilities to counter potential foreign cyber activity in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security. It does not publicly grant new authorities or establish a new election-security organization.
U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, say they have seen no evidence that a foreign adversary has attempted to interfere with voting machines, physical election infrastructure or the counting of votes ahead of Tuesday's midterms. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said last week that officials continue to see nothing contradicting that assessment, but urged Americans to remain «on high alert» for foreign disinformation, particularly as artificial intelligence makes such campaigns easier to spread.
Officials nonetheless continue to track foreign influence efforts from Russia, China and Iran. CNN reported Sunday that Russia remains the most active foreign influence threat. Lawmakers briefed on classified intelligence last month said Russia was using disinformation to target candidates and undermine confidence in the electoral process. U.S. elections are attractive targets for foreign adversaries because the stakes extend beyond who wins office: influencing voters or eroding trust in the process can shape U.S. policy and deepen domestic divisions without ever touching a voting machine.
Source: foxnews.com
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