On Monday, The New Yorker published a piece in which intelligence officials sound the alarm about potential foreign interference in the upcoming election. Jessica Brandt, the director of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, highlighted ongoing threats from Russia, Iran, and China, explaining how these governments employ digital tools aimed at manipulating public opinion.

Brandt said that AI-generated deepfakes “can come in thirty-six thousand flavors” and assured the interviewer that those working to counter foreign influence are keeping politics out of it.

The day I visited the center, Brandt, in an attempt to dispel doubts about partisanship, took the exceptional step of introducing me to the chair of the experts’ group—a stern veteran of the intelligence agencies who looked at least a decade older than Brandt, and whom I agreed not to name. She told me, “As a career civil servant, I try not to have a public persona.” During her two years leading the experts’ group, she said, nobody had ever discussed potential political repercussions: “Never in any of the meetings has it even come up—what will this mean for a political party, or what will it mean for an Administration?”

The main threshold for a public notification about a piece of intelligence, the experts’ chair said, is “Could it undermine the credibility of an election or potentially change its outcome?” Brandt, speaking as a former think-tank scholar, noted that political scientists still have no accepted way to gauge the impact of an online propaganda campaign. But the chair struck a firmer tone, saying, “If we think the activity might undermine the credibility or affect the outcome, we are going to weigh very seriously a public notification.”

Clint Watts of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center said that Russia’s supposed success in the 2016 election has “convinced almost every authoritarian nation that they needed to jump into this.”

Yet, there are concerns that the Biden-Harris administration isn’t taking Iran’s efforts to hack the Trump campaign seriously. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said, “You don’t hear a lot from the Administration about the malign influence of Iran in hacking the Trump campaign.”

Another report discusses a warning coming from the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  about foreign election interference.

The FBI and a federal agency dedicated to cybersecurity issued a warning on Oct. 18 about efforts by foreign actors trying to “spread disinformation” regarding the upcoming Nov. 5 election—with just over two weeks ago before the contest.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said they have “no information suggesting cyber activity against U.S. election infrastructure” that has “compromised the integrity of voter registration information, prevented an eligible voter from casting a ballot, impacted the integrity of any ballots cast, or disrupted the ability to count votes or transmit unofficial election results in a timely manner.”

But the two agencies said that foreign adversaries still might promote “false or misleading narratives” to sway the election or to undermine American confidence in its election systems and processes.

Specifically, the two agencies warned of election-related content produced by artificial intelligence (AI) that has lowered the guardrails for malicious or foreign actors to create more advanced schemes to influence the election.

In a joint statement, the agencies said foreign governments are using various tools “to develop and distribute more compelling synthetic media messaging campaigns and inauthentic news articles, as well as synthetic pictures and deepfakes…at greater speed and scale across numerous U.S.- and foreign-based platforms.”

Russian groups have “created and deliberately designed” websites to resemble establishment media outlets like The Washington Post, Fox News, and others to “undermine voter confidence and to entice unwitting consumers of the information to discuss, share, and amplify the spread of false or misleading narratives.”

Sounds like fertile ground for yet another foreign influence narrative if Trump wins, does it not?

To be fair, the governments of Russia, Iran, and China have been trying to meddle in our elections. This is nothing new. In 2016, Russia did try to undermine confidence in our democratic processes, but they did not swing the outcome in either direction, as Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media insisted.

The FBI and CISA warning about foreign actors using AI-generated disinformation to cause confusion are likely credible. But they also serve to set the foundation for Democrats to cry “Russia Russia Russia” if their candidate loses in November.

If Trump does win, Democrats will argue that Boris and Natasha somehow tricked a wide swath of voters into voting for the Orange Man What Is Bad™. They will make this claim even in the absence of direct evidence of voter manipulation to excuse their loss.

Even further, I wouldn’t put it past them to try pretending the Trump campaign colluded with whichever government the Democrats use for this narrative. They won’t hesitate to drag the nation through yet another collusion hoax to undermine Trump’s second term. At this point, it makes sense to speculate that Democrats probably already have another Robert Mueller on speed dial for the proceedings.