July 26, 2019

Republicans Are Doing a Good Job Blocking Efforts to Fight Russian Meddling in 2020

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-block-action-to-fight-russian-election-meddling-863864/?fbclid=IwAR1dUbW8r7TpiZAJEKTZp26S8EtQwZBs9m46eqzprwYSBEWNdfBvNERaL9k
"Former special counsel Robert Mueller issued several reminders during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday. Russia wanted to put in Trump in the White House in 2016, he said, which we already knew. We also knew that Trump’s campaign welcomed this help, that Trump made concerted efforts to impede the investigation into the matter, and that, three years later, Russia is still working to interfere in American elections. As Mueller put it Wednesday, it’s happening “as we sit here.” On Thursday, we learned something new: Russia’s interference in the 2016 election involved efforts to hack into the election systems of all 50 states, not just 21, as had previously been reported. The revelation came in the first volume of a heavily redacted bipartisan report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which notes that the attempts to hack state election systems went mostly unnoticed by U.S. officials. The committee found no evidence that any votes were changed or that voting machines were manipulated, but wrote that the extent of Russia’s activity against state election infrastructure was “unprecedented.” The report warns that many of the vulnerabilities that left American election systems open to exploitation in 2016 have not been addressed, and that more must be done to safeguard these systems ahead of the 2020 elections. FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed while speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Security earlier on Thursday. “We know our adversaries are relentless,” he said. “So are we.” Not so relentless are Republicans in the Senate, who blocked two election security bills and another cybersecurity measure just hours after Mueller’s testimony concluded on Wednesday. The former former bills would require campaigns to notify the FBI and the Federal Election Commission if a foreign entity offered election assistance. In 2016, the Trump campaign did not alert authorities of such offers."