Ahead of the presidential elections last year in the US, Russian hackers attacked the electoral authorities in 21 States. But the White house still wants to know nothing about the Russian intervention.
Investigation of the U.S. Congress about Russia’s role in the presidential election of 2016 are gradually moving. On Wednesday, the intelligence Committees of both houses almost simultaneously held a new hearing on this issue. They focused on the numerous hacking attacks on the election administration and the party in the upcoming elections, which, according to General assessment, was conducted on behalf of the Russian government.
No reports of affected States
Jeanette Manfra, a senior official responsible for cyber security at the Ministry of internal security, told the Senate that, according to the investigation at this point, the goal of Russian hacker attacks have become election authorities in 21 States. This is the first time the American authorities disclosed this information to the public. In the January intelligence report on Russia, they are only indirectly indicated such attacks. Still officially declared, attacks on election authorities in Illinois and Arizona, as well as — according to a recent “leaked” report of the NSA — more than 100 local election commissions in Florida.
21 staff, who mentioned Mantra, it’s still less than 39 States, about which wrote Bloomberg, citing an anonymous source in the government. In any case, the focus should be on systematic and coordinated attack of the adversary state.
Mantra didn’t want to name the affected States, which caused criticism of his co-chairs, Democrat Mark Warner. Authorities also withheld information about the impact of these attacks. The head of the Department of cybersecurity the Department of homeland security, Samuel Liles, spoke of “a small number” of States in which hackers broke into the software for a vote. According to him, the authorities responsible for the vote counting system, were not affected; therefore, there is no evidence that the hackers could change the outcome.
Trump has inadvertently helping the Russians?
Before senators were also made by the head of counterintelligence for the FBI bill Priestap. According to him, there is no doubt that Russia was behind hacking attacks. However, the White house does not want to admit it. After the inauguration of President trump called reports of Russia’s influence fake news and fantasies of the Democrats; he also made no effort to improve U.S. defenses against such attacks.
This split between intelligence agencies and the President is not only disturbing, but also leads to a strange rhetorical distortions. At the hearing of Pristupa asked whether trump is “innocent” agent of Moscow, when constantly repeated Russian propaganda. Pratap shrugged and refused to answer. Before Sean Spicer, press Secretary of the President, asked whether the parts now trump the assessment of the attempts to influence Russia. Spicer only pointedly said that he never asked the President about it. The press service of the White house probably have good reason — the expected response of the head of state would hardly be beneficial to his reputation.
