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Michael R. Pence is the 48th and current Vice President of the United States.Vice President Micheal Pence poses for his official portrait at The White House, in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, October 24, 2017. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)

Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence. As a young boy he had a front row seat to the American Dream. After his grandfather immigrated to the United States when he was 17, his family settled in the Midwest. The future Vice President watched his Mom and Dad build everything that matters a family, a business, and a good name. Sitting at the feet of his mother and his father, who started a successful convenience store business in their small Indiana town, he was raised to believe in the importance of hard work, faith, and family.

Vice President Pence set off for Hanover College, earning his bachelors degree in history in 1981. While there, he renewed his Christian faith which remains the driving force in his life. He later attended Indiana University School of Law and met the love of his life, Second Lady Karen Pence.

After graduating, Vice President Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and began hostingThe Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana. Along the way he became the proud father to three children, Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.

Growing up in Indiana, surrounded by good, hardworking Hoosiers, Vice President Pence always knew that he needed to give back to the state and the country that had given him so much. In 2000, he launched a successful bid for his local congressional seat, entering the United States House of Representatives at the age of 40.

The people of East-Central Indiana elected Vice President Pence six times to represent them in Congress. On Capitol Hill he established himself as a champion of limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, educational opportunity, and the U.S. Constitution. His colleagues quickly recognized his leadership ability and unanimously elected him to serve as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and House Republican Conference Chairman. In this role, the Vice President helped make government smaller and more effective, reduce spending, and return power to state and local governments.

In 2013, Vice President Pence left the nations capital when Hoosiers elected him the 50th Governor of Indiana. He brought the same limited government and low tax philosophy to the Indiana Statehouse. As Governor, he enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana history, lowering individual income tax rates, the business personal property tax, and the corporate income tax in order to strengthen the States competitive edge and attract new investment and good-paying jobs. Due to his relentless focus on jobs, the states unemployment rate fell by half during his four years in office, and at the end of his term, more Hoosiers were working than at any point in the states 200-year history.

As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan in Indiana history. He made career and technical education a priority in every high school. Under Vice President Pences leadership, Indiana, known as The Crossroads of America, invested more than $800 million in new money for roads and bridges across the state. Despite the record tax cuts and new investments in roads and schools, the state remained fiscally responsible, as the Vice President worked with members of the Indiana General Assembly to pass two honestly balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings that were the envy of the nation.

It was Indianas success story, Vice President Pences record of legislative and executive experience, and his strong family values that prompted President Donald Trump to select Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. The American people elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence entered office on January 20, 2017.

Vice President Mike Pence remains grateful for the grace of God, the love and support of his family, and the blessings of liberty that are every Americans birthright. He looks forward to working with the American people as together they seek to Make America Great Again.

Follow the Office of the Vice President on Twitter at@VP.

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Vice President Mike Pence | The White House

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at fundraiser for Josh Hawley in Springfield on Monday Springfield News-Leader

Vice President Mike Pence is presented with a green and gold jersey by Gov. Scott Walker at the Oneida Golf & Country Club on Wednesday, October 10, 2018 in Green Bay, Wis.(Photo: Adam Wesley/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

WASHINGTON After Josh Hawley decided to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen.Claire McCaskill in the 2018 midterm elections, he got plenty of campaign advice from a seasoned fellow Republican: Vice President Mike Pence.

The vice president talked to Hawley about messaging and pressed him on his plan for raising money to compete with McCaskill, a prolific fundraiser. It was Pence, in fact, who had helped convinceHawley to enter Missouri's Senate race, what has become one of the most closely watched contests in Tuesdays elections.

Pences involvement in the midterm elections that will decide control of Congress has taken him to at least three dozen states over the past 10 months for rallies,fundraising events and to sell the GOP tax cuts. While predecessors such as Dick Cheney and Joe Biden also campaigned intensively during midterm elections, Pence, a former governor and six-term congressman who enjoys a good fight, has taken to the task with particular zeal, wooing donors, sending six-figure checks from his political action committee, to gubernatorial candidates,revving up the Christian conservative base and cutting commercials for Republican Senate candidates.

Hes been able to do so without drawing a lot of the attention and scrutiny that Trump has. Instead of the large rallies that Trump feeds off of with freewheeling remarks, Pences has smaller, more traditional politicalappearances where he refers to himself as Mike from what we call the Walmart Wing of the West Wing and sticks to the script.

Let's make sure thatblue wavehits a red wall right here, Pence has said in various iterations in Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Michigan, Oklahoma and elsewhere, pounding out the sentencewith pauses in between the last four words.

Pence can comeacross as earnest but affable if a little artificial as he leans into his lectern, reassuring farmers in Iowa that Trumps trade battles will work out well for them or drawing standing ovations when taking a victory lap on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

While Trump revels in the did he just say that? comments, even Pences recent warning that the election is a choice between jobs or mobs sounds more likea rhetorical flourish than a battle cry.

If Trump dominates the headlines, Pence has amassed a different measure of impact. Hes raised more than $70million for fellow Republicans andmade more than 140candidate rallies or fundraising events, according to his political team.

Hes been a secret weapon for so many members, said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Vice President Mike Pence appears on stage with U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley, who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, at the Oasis Hotel & Convention Center during a private fundraising event in Springfield, Mo. on Monday, Oct. 8, 2018.(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)

But groups like Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, which have organized protesters at some of his events and say opposition to Pences record has helped them raise money and motivate their voters, are trying to prevent him from flying completely under the radar.

Hes just sort of a blank slate in a lot of peoples minds, said Geoff Wetrosky, campaign director for the Human Rights Campaign. So were trying to make sure that people understand his record. Because he is polarizing. People just dont know it.

The amount of Pences political activity and fact that his chief of staff is a political operative and Pence is the first vice president to create his own political action committee in his first term stand out, said Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential expert at the Saint Louis University School of Law.

My sense is that Pence is spending relatively more of his time doing political things than did other recent vice presidents, Goldstein said.

But dont suggest at least not to Pence that he is doing it for any reason other than to help Trump.

Pence has gone out of his way to portray himself as loyal to the president, raising money and stumping for candidates to help Trump succeed and not to benefit his own political aspirations.

We understand these things dont hurt you, said Marty Obst, Pences senior political adviser. But the future is a long way away.

But if the future comes sooner than expected such as through a report from special counsel Robert Mueller serious enough to make congressional Republicans wonder if they want to stick with Trump the amount of time Pence has spent helping members of Congress will be remembered.

Its a lot easier to break ranks and vote articles of impeachment if you feel that the person who will become president not only reflects your values and your policy positions, but is your friend, said Elaine Kamarck, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who worked for Vice President Al Gore. Who has friends among House members? It aint Donald Trump. Its Mike Pence.

Trump chose the then-Indiana governor and former House member as his running mate in 2016 in part for his ties to the GOP establishment and fundraising skills.

Both assets have deep roots.

As president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation in the early 1990s, Pence made influential friends throughout the country through a network of conservative think tanks. When Pence was elected to the House in 2000, he received substantial support from the campaign arm of House Republicans, which sent the House speaker and other big names to campaign for him.

Vice President Mike Pence visits with supporters as he stumps for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Martha McSally on Oct. 26, 2018, in Yuma, Arizona.(Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)

After winning his election, Pence overpaid his dues to the National Republican Congressional Committee, raising more money than he was expected to and continuing throughout his career to contribute despite not having the committee assignments that make it easy to collect dollars, according to former NRCC chair Tom Davis.

Mike has always been grateful for what the party did for him, said Davis, who called Pence's current level of involvement "extraordinary."

This is part of his DNA, he said.

Likewise, as governor, Pence was a top fundraiser among fellow governors for his GOP colleagues in the 2014 midterms.

And when Pence joined Trump on the 2016 ticket, the Republican National Committee gave him a list of donors to work on.

He continues to be the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to a lot of conservative donors, Davis said. He can talk about the interest groups that make up the conservative coalition in a way that very few people can do.

As planning for the midterm elections got underway, Pence plottedwith McCarthy about going to California because of the number of vulnerable GOP incumbents there representing districts that Trump lost. The duo created a joint fundraising committee that collected $5 million in two days for multiple lawmakers more than I thought they would get, McCarthy said.

The strategy was quickly expanded to other states, providing crucial fundraising help for incumbents in a year when many were getting outraised by Democratic challengers.

On the Senate side, Pences extensive help for Hawley, the Missouri Senate candidate, includedserving as the main attraction at fundraisers in July and October, touting the GOP tax cuts with Hawley by his side in St. Louis, and praising Hawley as a man of faith and of principle at a rally in Springfield.

I cant remember somebody else that has traveled as much as the vice president, McCarthy said. He understands whats needed in a campaign.

One reason Pence is campaigning so hard is he knows what its like to be in the minority.

I was in Congress the last time Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House, Pence said at recent rally for Nevada Rep. Cresent Hardy, one of dozen candidates he campaigned for over a four-day period. And you dont want that to ever happen again.

Ron Klain, who worked for the last two Democratic vice presidents, said Pences political activity does appear to be at the high end. But it also seems to be concentrated more at bridging the gap between traditional party groups and the Trump political apparatus rather than trying to reach out to swing voters, he said.

Clearly he is a lightning rod for some progressive groups in a way that really wasnt the case on the opposite side for either (Al) Gore or (Joe) Biden, Klain said.

Planned Parenthood noticed that right after the presidential election when the group started receiving contributions in Pences name about one-quarter of donations collected in the first month. Planned Parenthood still receives thousands of donations a month in honor of Pence. And in an election year in which women are driving much of the voter enthusiasm, the group has been highlighting Pences strong anti-abortion record and efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

"While he may not get as much attention as Trump," said Erica Sackin, Planned Parenthoods director of political communications, "he really embodies the same kind of anti-woman policy and sentiment that we're seeing being pushed by the leadership of the Republican Party and that people are rebelling against."

Democratic candidates have also tried to use Pence to their advantage. During a candidate debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warrenof Massachusettsattemptedto tie Republican challenger Geoff Diehl to Pences record on gay rights, including his backingas governor a religious freedom law that critics said would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Applying political jujitsu, Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, uses Pences expansion of Medicaid in Indiana to argue that Georgia should do the same.

But Pence, who has already made severaltrips to Georgia, squeezedin another trip Thursday to help turn out the vote for Abrams opponent, Brian Kemp.

Noting that Abrams was getting help from Oprah Winfrey andWill Ferrell, Pence channeled Ferrell's "Anchorman" character Ron Burgundy when he joked:"Im kind of a big deal too."

Pencewas also planning to go to Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, staying on the road "almost continuously" and making multiple stops a day in the run-up tothe election.

Win or lose the midterms, Obst said, Pence will have left nothing on the table.

More: Midterm elections 2018: Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle gin up GOP base like 'rock stars'

More: Midterm elections: Fearing loss of the House, Republicans blame each other. 'Welcome to Washington'

More: Here's what 27 bellwether races say about a possible Democratic blue wave

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More than three months of drama and controversy over the future of the Supreme Court is set to end in the next 36 hours. The Senate will decide Friday morning whether to send the president's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to a final vote, expected early Saturday evening. Republicans control the Senate 51 to 49, so the GOP can only afford to have one of its senators vote "no."

Three Republican senators are considered undecided: Senators Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, and Lisa Murkowski. Sources tell CBS News Vice President Mike Pence will be in Washington this weekend, in case his vote is needed to break a tie.

On Friday, we should know once and for all whether Kavanaugh has the support he needs to get confirmed because the way those few remaining undecided senators vote to end debate today could signal how they plan to vote Saturday on final confirmation. Forces on both sides have been piling on the pressure all the way to the end.

In a final bid before the vote, anti-Kavanaugh protesters spent the night on Capitol grounds, egged on by Democrats. His confirmation now hinges on one Democrat and three Republicans.

According to a summary released overnight by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI interviewed 10 people who might have had firsthand knowledge of the sexual assault allegations by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez.

For Ford, the FBI spoke with three people she claimed were at the party in question: Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and Leyland Keyser. They also spoke with Timothy Gaudette and Christopher Garrett, Kavanaugh's classmates who were referenced on his calendars.

The FBI also interviewed Ramirez, along with two eyewitnesses named by Ramirez, as well as her close friend from college. According to the Republican summary, the FBI found no corroboration of the allegations made by Ford or Ramirez.

Still, North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp announced she was a "no."

"I can't get up in the morning and look at the life experience that I have had and say yes to Judge Kavanaugh," Heitkamp said.

Kavanaugh, who's denied the allegations, wrote an op-ed Thursday night admitting he "might have been too emotional at times, I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said." He wrote it "reflected my overwhelming frustration at being wrongly accused."

Ford's lawyers called the investigation a "stain on the process" because the FBI "declined to interview" friends and others who could have backed her up.

"The report ignores some of the absolutely crucial witnesses," said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

CBS News has confirmed that the FBI limited its scope at the direction of Republicans and the White House.

When asked why the FBI did not interview people Ford had confided in, Republican Sen. Mike Lee replied, "Our request was to the White House, the White House then made the request of the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation into current, credible accusations of sexual misconduct. They did that."

Lee's comments are a reflection of just how vague Republicans and the White House have been about the marching orders they gave the FBI. To give you a sense of how intense the last minute lobbying is, the White House, former President George W. Bush, and other heavy hitters have all been working the phones trying to ensure that Kavanaugh gets confirmed.

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Mike Pence expected to be on standby in case tie-breaker ...

Vice President Mike Pence is accusing China of trying to undermine President Donald Trump as the administration deploys tough new rhetoric over Chinese trade, economic and foreign policies. (Oct. 4) AP

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the 2018 Values Voter Summit in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018.(Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday accused the Chinese government of orchestrating an aggressive military, economic and political campaign to expand its influence inside the United States and across other regions of the world.

China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections, Pence said in a highly anticipated speech to the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.

President Donald Trump first charged the Chinese government with meddling in the U.S. election last week during a United Nations Security Council session. He offered no specific evidence at the time, and the Chinese government has sharply rejected the accusations.

A spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry,Hua Chunying, called Pence's accusations "unwarranted" and a "malicious slander on China."

"China always follows the principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs, and we have no interest in meddling in U.S. internal affairs and elections," Hua said Thursday evening. "The international community has already known fully well who wantonly infringes upon others' sovereignty, interferes in others' internal affairs and undermines others' interests."

Pence offered a few additional details about what he said were the proactive and coercive ways China is trying to manipulate U.S. domestic policies and politics.

Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups, and propaganda outlets to shift Americans perception of Chinese policies, Pence said. The vice president said a senior American intelligence official told him what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.

Russia has engagedin a widespread disinformation campaign to sway American elections and divide the U.S. electorate, most notably in the 2016 presidential contest. After that election, the U.S. intelligence community issued a public report concluding that the Russian government had directed an effort to help elect Trump.

Some skeptics have questioned the Trump administration's accusations against China, suggesting it is an effort to divert attention away from Russia's ongoing meddling in the 2018 midterm elections.

"It's a distraction" and an effort to turn the GOP base against China, saidClint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Instituteand author of "Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News."

Trump last week singled outa four-page advertising supplement that a Chinese-government media company placedin Iowas largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, as evidence of the Asian countrys propaganda campaign. The president said China was trying to undermine him because of his aggressive stance on trade, including his decision to slap tariffs on $250 billion worthof Chinese goods shipped into the U.S.

Pence also highlighted those advertisements in his speech Thursday. And he said China has tailored its retaliatory tariffs to hit states that will be pivotal to the outcome of the 2018 election.

"By one estimate, more than 80% of U.S. counties targeted by China voted for President Trump and I in 2016," Pence said. "Now China wants to turn these votersagainst our administration."

"... To put it bluntly, President Trumps leadership is working; China wants a different American President," Pence told the audience Thursday.

But Watts said the newspaper ads and tariffs cannot be compared to the secret disinformation campaign launched by the Russians in the 2016 election. The Chinese government, he said, is making an overt,public argument against Trump's trade policies to those most affected: American farmers.

"Its not even the same thing as the election interference," Watts said. "Theyre wielding economic influence, and it just shows how fundamentally weak the Trump administration is at understanding the conflicts theyre in."

As White House officials seek to highlight China's activities, Watts added, they have downplayed or even ignored Russia's ongoing meddling.

In his speech Thursday, Pence also accused China's Communist Party of using rewards and coercion to influence American businesses, universities, and think tanks, and government officials. He said, for example, thatChina threatened to deny a business license for a major American corporation unless it spoke out against the Trump administrations trade policies.

"Beijing compelled Delta Airlines to publicly apologize for not calling Taiwan a 'provinceof China'on its website. It also pressured Marriott to fire a U.S. employee who liked a tweet about Tibet," the vice president said.

He linked those alleged activities to China's broader effort to extend its military and economic power across Asia and Africa.

He accused China of "reckless harassment" of the U.S. Navy during operations in the South China Sea. And noted that China has useddebt diplomacy to expand its influence in Africa and elsewhere, offering billions of dollars in infrastructure loans aimed at benefiting China's access toports and other key transit hubs.

In an interview with NPR before Pence's speech, China's Ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, downplayed China's global aspirations.

"Our priority, our most important task is still to run our own country well," Cui said. "But we also understand China cannot develop and modernize in isolation. We have to build strong ties with the rest of the world. We have to further integrate into the global economy and the global governance, and we are ready to take up more responsibilities and make greater contribution in this regard."

Even as Pence portrayed China as a pernicious threat, he said Trump had cultivated "astrong personal relationship" with China's president,Xi Jinping, and asserted that rapport could lead to a thaw in U.S.-China relations.

"Today, America is reaching out our hand to China," Pencesaid,"and we hope that Beijing will soon reach back."

Michael Collins contributed.

More: Trump accuses China of meddling in US midterm elections, blasts Iran, at UN Security Council meeting

More: Trump's State Department outgunned in fight to counter Russian disinformation around globe

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Mike Pence has claimed that Russian interference in US elections pales in comparison with Chinese meddling, which he said was aimed at ousting Donald Trump.

The vice-presidents allegation echoes a similar claim made by the president at the UN last week, but it has been contradicted by cybersecurity experts and the administration has yet to provide any supporting evidence, other than to point to instances of overt lobbying.

The administrations own secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, said: We currently have no indication that a foreign adversary intends to disrupt our election infrastructure.

We know they [the Chinese] have the capability and we know they have the will. So were constantly on alert to watch. But what we see with China right now are the influence campaigns, the more traditional, longstanding, holistic influence campaigns, Nielsen said on Tuesday at a Washington Post cybersecurity conference.

In his remarks on Thursday, Pence alleged a far more focused Chinese assault on US democracy.

China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential election, Pence said at the Hudson Institute, a Washington thinktank. To put it bluntly, President Trumps leadership is working, and China wants a different American president. China is meddling in Americas democracy.

We urge the US to correct its wrongdoing, stop groundlessly accusing and slandering China

To that end, Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups and propaganda outlets to shift Americans perception of Chinese policies, the vice-president added. As a senior career member of our intelligence community recently told me, what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.

China described Pences speech as unwarranted accusations and said it slandered China by claiming that China meddles in US internal affairs and elections. Any efforts to rhetorically attack China would be futile.

This is nothing but speaking on hearsay evidence, confusing right and wrong and creating something out of thin air. The Chinese side is firmly opposed to it, Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement. We urge the US to correct its wrongdoing, stop groundlessly accusing and slandering China and harming Chinas interests and China-US ties, and take concrete actions to maintain the sound and steady development of China-US relations.

In a thinly veiled critique of US foreign policy, Hua said the international community has already known fully well who wantonly infringes upon others sovereignty, interferes in others internal affairs and undermines others interests.

Following Pences remarks, a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security said there was no contradiction with Nielsens earlier statement, adding that she had been speaking exclusively about threats to election infrastructure such as voting machines and voter registration databases.

The official said the homeland security secretary had not addressed malign foreign influence that seeks to sow discord, undermine or advance targeted politicians.

In July, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, said that China, from a counterintelligence perspective, represents the broadest, most challenging, most significant threat we face as a country.

However, Wray added that China represented a different kind of threat from Russia and was focused primarily on economic espionage.

Pences remarks and Trumps original claim at the UN security council that the Chinese dont want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade come at a time when the Trump campaign is under investigation for possible collusion with Russia to sway the 2016 presidential election in Trumps favour. US intelligence officials have warned that Russia is also aiming to interfere in the congressional vote in November.

The justice department has so far indicted 25 Russian intelligence officers for election interference. On the same day Pence made his speech, the Dutch authorities revealed evidence that Russian military intelligence had tried to hack into the computer systems of the Organisation for Prevention of Chemical Warfare and the US justice department indicted seven Russian intelligence officers for a lengthy and wide-ranging conspiracy to hack into private computers and networks around the world.

In his speech, Pence did not offer any new evidence for his allegations against Russia. Like Trump, he pointed to an openly Chinese-sponsored newspaper supplement in Iowa, that argued against the administrations policy on trade tariffs.

The vice-president made an additional allegation, saying that China is targeting US state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy, but did not give details on how local government was being targeted.

James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese military and influence operations and the vice-president of the intelligence division at Defense Group Inc, said: There is some discussion about Chinese campaign finance issues at the local and state and senate level, and I think were going to need to dig deeper on that, because I personally have not seen any concrete evidence of the same level of meddling, particularly directed towards the midterms.

Cybersecurity experts said China was more engaged in industrial espionage and intellectual property (IP) theft than in attacks on the electoral system.

We are seeing a massive amount of intrusions by China into organisations all around the US, but mainly aimed at economic targets, said Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of CrowdStrike Inc, a leading US cybersecurity firm. Its quite a lot different from Russia. We personally have not seen hacking of political campaigns and the release of documents. We have not seen a lot of going after political causes.

John McLaughlin, the former acting director of the CIA, said that Pence appeared to be echoing what Wray said in July.

But left open is the question of why the president and vice-president have not called out Russia as explicitly and forcefully. Russias overall effort may be less impressive but it has certainly been consequential, McLaughlin said in an email.

Paul Pillar, a retired senior CIA analyst, said he would be surprised if there was a US intelligence assessment that the Russian threat to elections pales in comparison with the Russian threat.

That is not from inside knowledge, but we know so much about Russian efforts. Nothing anywhere like that has come out about the Chinese, Pillar said. My guess is this is speechwriters hyperbole.

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Mike Pence accuses China of meddling in US elections ...