Biggest worry on election security is Americans’ loss of confidence, Wray says

• By Philip Ewing/NPR

(Washington) – The greatest peril posed to American elections is that the cloud of fear and uncertainty about them will cause citizens to stop believing they matter, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress on Thursday.

The bureau’s top G-Man was asked in a House homeland security hearing about his No. 1 concern as the FBI and other agencies work to quash the manifold foreign threats posed to this and future elections. Wray said the worst danger isn’t something within the power of a foreign government.

“The steady drumbeat of misinformation and amplification of small instructions, I worry, contribute over time to a lack of confidence in American voters and citizens in the validity of their vote,” Wray said. “That would be a perception not a reality … but I worry that people will take on a perception of futility because of all the noise and obfuscation that’s generated.”

The FBI director didn’t mention one of the biggest critics of the validity of U.S. elections — his own boss, President Trump.

Trump and even another of Wray’s supervisors, Attorney General William Barr, have sought to cast doubt on the integrity of an election expected to involve the most-ever voting by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. That followed years of unfounded allegations by Trump about fraud, including claims that a panel appointed by the president could not verify.

The FBI director has said several times on Thursday that he doesn’t want to step into political controversies in a way he considers in appropriate, which is likely why he phrased his answer to the House committee as broadly as he did.

The dilemma for Wray and U.S. officials, however, is how effective they can be in defeating what he called an earlier stream of malign influence when so much doubt about the integrity of U.S. democracy is being raised from within.