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Ever since the 2016 presidential election that first got President Donald Trump elected and the ensuing Russiagate scandal, there has been increased scrutiny on foreign meddling in U.S. elections and threats to the American voting system.
Now, 10 years later, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is directing his entire intelligence and spy forces on ensuring foreign adversaries do not interfere in Tuesday’s midterms.
The Pentagon chief has ordered America’s military intelligence and cyber agencies to mobilize against foreign threats to the 2026 elections by directing his department’s sprawling intelligence apparatus to make election security a priority in what he calls a “no-fail mission.”
The September directive reaches beyond U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, instructing the entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise — including agencies responsible for military and geospatial intelligence — to “mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership” against foreign election threats.
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The order puts some of the military’s most sophisticated intelligence capabilities behind a mission that has grown considerably since Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. But with Americans preparing to vote, the extent to which Hegseth’s directive has changed the Pentagon’s existing election-security operations remains unclear.
The Department of War declined to provide Fox News Digital with additional details about how the order is being implemented. Cyber Command separately declined an interview request about its election-security efforts.
In practice, the directive can mean military intelligence agencies are tasked with identifying foreign hackers or influence operations overseas, warning civilian agencies about threats headed toward U.S. targets and, when authorized, Cyber Command taking action 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 agencies including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security handle the domestic side.
The Pentagon’s election security mission is not new. Cyber Command and NSA have spent years tracking and disrupting foreign threats around American elections, including operations targeting Russian actors during previous election cycles.
The effort began taking 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, combining 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 echoed by Hegseth four years later.
“Rest assured, we were doing operations well before the midterms began, and we were doing operations likely on the day of the midterms,” Nakasone said after the 2022 election, 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 whether that structure was recreated for this year’s midterms has been less clear.
Gen. Joshua Rudd, the current head of Cyber Command and 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 that he was unsure whether the Election Security Group had been reconvened.
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Five months later, Hegseth issued his department-wide directive, addressed not only to Cyber Command and NSA but also to the directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
The order instructs military intelligence agencies to collect and analyze intelligence on foreign election threats while directing 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, instead reinforcing a mission the military has increasingly treated as an enduring responsibility.
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 intelligence 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.
But officials continue to track foreign influence efforts from Russia, China and Iran, with Russia remaining the most active foreign influence threat, CNN reported Sunday.
U.S. elections are attractive targets for foreign adversaries because the stakes extend far beyond who wins office: influencing American voters or undermining confidence in the process can shape U.S. policy, weaken public support for policies they oppose and deepen divisions without ever touching a voting machine.
Lawmakers briefed on classified intelligence last month said Russia was using disinformation to target candidates and undermine confidence in the election, while China’s influence efforts were more narrowly focused on candidates viewed as hostile to Beijing.
The Pentagon’s role focuses on threats originating overseas, while state and local officials administer elections and civilian federal agencies lead domestic election-security efforts.
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Hegseth’s directive makes that overseas mission a priority across the broader military intelligence enterprise, though the Pentagon has not disclosed whether it has resulted in additional personnel, resources or organizational changes ahead of Election Day.
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