Manufacturing Controversy

On September 27, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against three Iranian intelligence agents accused of running a “hack-and-leak” campaign targeting the Trump campaign. It was the kind of case—one brought by a Democrat-led DOJ against foreign actors seeking to damage a Republican candidate—that should have been celebrated as proof positive that the United States can depoliticize efforts to combat foreign interference.

Instead, the major “election interference” news from last week was not an adversarial operation to hack a presidential campaign but a factory visit.

While in the United States, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania ammunition plant with top Democrats, including the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro. In response, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a blistering open letter to Zelenskyy demanding the resignation of Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington for organizing the visit, which he labelled a “partisan campaign event” that amounted to “election interference”.

Whether Zelenskyy’s decision to tour a plant supplying his country with munitions during a war with Russia qualifies as partisan campaigning is a matter of opinion. He may have been unwise or undiplomatic to participate in an event in a swing state without members of both parties present, but it was not, under any definition advanced by the United States or any other democracy, foreign interference.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the part of Homeland Security tasked with, among other things, defending elections from foreign interference, defines foreign interference as “malign actions taken by foreign governments or foreign actors designed to sow discord, manipulate public discourse, discredit the electoral system, bias the development of policy, or disrupt markets for the purpose of undermining the interests of the United States and its allies”.

A visit by a foreign leader to an American factory checks none of those boxes.

According to the FBI, “foreign malign influence”—a different but related term—requires that foreign actors engage in activity that is “subversive, covert (or undeclared), coercive, or criminal”. Australia uses similar language in its definition of foreign interference, noting that foreign actions must be “coercive, deceptive, clandestine, or corrupting”. Again, even under the most uncharitable interpretations, Zelenskyy’s visit does not meet any of those conditions. It was also not even close to the most flagrant example of a foreign leader campaigning for a candidate this cycle.

That was committed by Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s self-proclaimed “illiberal” leader, who in March bypassed the Biden administration to visit Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida. After the visit, the prime minister tweeted, “We need leaders in the world who are respected and can bring peace. [Trump] is one of them! Come back and bring us peace, Mr. President!” Appearing at the conservative CPAC conference in Budapest in May, Orbán told the crowd to “Make America great again!” before proclaiming, “Go Donald Trump!”

Those actions and words, which notably did not draw Johnson’s rebuke, let alone demands for the resignation of the Hungarian ambassador, represent a far more explicit endorsement of a candidate than Zelenskyy’s factory visit. Yet Orbán’s endorsement also does not constitute foreign interference.

Foreign leaders are allowed to voice their support or opposition to candidates, parties, or policies. Most do not, for reasons that have more to do with pragmatism than diplomatic politeness—it is a politically risky bet to back one horse, especially in a tight, two-horse race. But influence and interference are not the same, as countries such as the United Kingdom, which recently passed a new foreign interference offence as part of their National Security Act 2023, have recognized. London clearly distinguishes “open and transparent influence activities” from interference.

This is not an academic debate about semantics. Conflating the egregious, criminal activities of Russia and Iran with Zelenskyy’s photo op weakens an understanding of foreign interference, minimizes the seriousness of it, and provides cover for those actually engaged in interference activities.

Just ask the Russians. “The U.S. administration is squealing like a pig about other countries, including Russia, meddling in their elections. At the same time, Ukraine's insane narco-president zelensky shamelessly plays along with Kamala by visiting the swing state of Pennsylvania,” tweeted Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, shortly after Johnson released his letter. Multiple Russian state media outlets, including the official X (formerly Twitter) account for RT—which has had no fewer than six employees sanctioned for interference activities in the United States in the past two months—did not even bother to comment. They simply tweeted Johnson’s letter in its entirety.

The US government, and the country’s private sector and civil society, have worked hard to untangle the concept of foreign interference from the inherently partisan views of the Trump-Russia investigation. There are positive signs that they are succeeding. Johnson’s letter is not one of them.