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In his public remarks stepping down as special counsel, Robert Mueller reminded Americans not to overlook a crucial finding from his investigation: Russia’s “multiple and systematic” efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. After the Special Counsel’s warning, some lawmakers have sought to reintroduce election security bills. And while election security has wide bipartisan support, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has blocked several election security measures, arguing that the federal government is already doing enough to protect elections. In his speech declaring “case closed” on the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, McConnell said the United States was ready for the 2020 race. “Thanks to this administration’s leadership, all 50 states and more than 1,400 local election jurisdictions focused on election security like never before,” McConnell said at the time. The problem predates the special counsel’s warning; election security legislation has been facing roadblocks for over a year in Congress, and little activity on the issue is expected in the coming months.

National: Democratic senator accuses White House of blocking election security legislation | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Monday said the White House is blocking election security legislation from moving through the Senate. Warner said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations that multiple measures he has introduced to secure U.S. elections against foreign interference are not receiving a floor vote in the Senate because of objections from the White House. Warner and several Democrats last week tried to pass the Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections Act by unanimous consent but were blocked by Republicans. The bill would require campaigns to notify the FBI about any attempts by foreign government to interfere in U.S. elections. The topic has gained traction in Congress following President Trump’s recent comments to ABC News that he would consider accepting information on a political opponent from a foreign government. Warner on Monday described Trump’s comments as “utterly outrageous.”

National: Lisa Murkowski joins Mitch McConnell’s opposition to election security proposals, setting up clash with House | Manu Raju and Ted Barrett/CNN

Senate GOP resistance is building over Democratic measures to bolster security around US elections, setting the stage for a partisan clash with the House over imposing tougher safeguards ahead of 2020. In the latest sign of the escalating standoff, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska dismissed calls Monday for election security legislation, while also rejecting a push by Democratic lawmakers to require campaigns to disclose to federal authorities if foreign nationals offer them help in presidential elections. It’s the latest sign of how the topic of election security has suddenly become a flashpoint in Congress amid President Donald Trump’s all-out assault on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. “I’m not sure why we need to have one,” Murkowski said when asked if she believed the Senate should advance an election security bill. “I know there are some who believe we have to do more election reform. I think some of it is calculated to add, I think, additional fuel to the Mueller report and the aftermath of that.” Murkowski also said she expected campaigns to voluntarily report offers of foreign interference to federal authorities, saying legislation to mandate such disclosure would amount to “political fodder.”

National: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid | David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth/The New York Times

The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said. In interviews over the past three months, the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action directed at Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections. Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States. But it also carries significant risk of escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow. The administration declined to describe specific actions it was taking under the new authorities, which were granted separately by the White House and Congress last year to United States Cyber Command, the arm of the Pentagon that runs the military’s offensive and defensive operations in the online world.

National: Federal election official accused of undermining his own agency | Eric Geller/Politico

A tiny federal agency that plays a crucial role in assisting the nation’s local election supervisors is gripped by a leadership crisis that has sparked concerns that it is unprepared to play its role in protecting the 2020 presidential race from foreign interference. Brian Newby, the executive director of the Election Assistance Commission, has blocked important work on election security, micromanaged employees’ interactions with partners outside the agency and routinely ignored staff questions, according to former election officials, former federal employees and others who regularly work with the agency. In doing so, Newby has not only frustrated his own employees and helped create a staff exodus — nine EAC office directors have left since Newby arrived — but also angered cybersecurity experts, election integrity activists and state and local officials. His reputation in the elections community conjures up “the eye-roll emoji,” said one former election official. “Everybody kind of puts up with him.” POLITICO’s seven sources — all of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly — described Newby, a Republican, as too beholden to the EAC’s GOP chairwoman, Christy McCormick, who masterminded his appointment and later spent years denying the reality of Russian interferencein the 2016 election. They also said that Newby alienated his agency almost immediately by wading into the issue of a citizenship requirement for voter eligibility — and that he has failed to regain their trust ever since. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the lawmakers most focused on election security, told POLITICO that “if these allegations are true, Brian Newby should immediately resign.”

National: Election security bills face GOP buzzsaw | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Election security legislation is hitting a wall on Capitol Hill despite special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report detailing Russia’s attempts to interfere with the nation’s last presidential contest. The standoff is frustrating Democrats, who say President Trump’s remarks to ABC News that he would be open to accepting information on a political opponent invited more interference in the next election. “I can’t believe Senator McConnell is not entertaining election security measures right now. … We don’t have a lot of time left,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat. The House passed a sweeping ethics and election reform bill that includes a paper ballot requirement and early voting standards. It also includes unrelated issues like tightening campaign finance laws, requiring a president and vice president to release their tax returns, and tapping independent commissions to draw redistricting maps. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed that it won’t get a vote, referring to it as the “Democratic Politician Protection Act.”

National: Democrats accelerate election security push after Trump comments | Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro/Associated Press

Alarmed by President Donald Trump’s willingness to accept foreign dirt on a political opponent, House Democrats are accelerating their efforts to strengthen election security ahead of the 2020 campaign. Lawmakers had already been compiling a fresh package of bills in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Trump-Russia probe. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are now pushing ahead with votes because it’s part of “what the American people elected us to do.” It remains to be seen if passage of bills through the House will break the stalemate in Congress over what to do about election security. While Russia interfered in the presidential election more than two years ago, lawmakers have yet to act on legislation — and there is no shortage of proposals. Democrats sped up their efforts after Trump suggested Wednesday in an interview with ABC News that he was open to accepting a foreign power’s help in his 2020 campaign. He appeared to walk those comments back Friday, telling Fox News that “of course” he would go to the FBI or the attorney general if a foreign power offered him dirt about an opponent.

National: Assessing the Evolving Risks to State, Local Election Systems | Lucas Ropek/GovTech

In the wake of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, American officials have sought to implement new cybersecurity measures in preparation for upcoming votes, even at the state and local levels. The electoral landscape has essentially changed, and a newly published white paper outlines the resultant dangers, while also making suggestions for state and local governments on how to take preventative action against potential hackers and bad actors. Securing America’s Elections, published by Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, suggests that more needs to be done to protect electoral infrastructure at all levels of government, while also asking the question: how likely is it that foreign powers — like Russia — will attempt another large-scale intervention in United States elections?

National: Mitch McConnell: Why the Senate leader is rejecting Hill calls on election security | Ted Barrett, Manu Raju and Clare Foran/CNN

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is refusing to buckle to the near constant drumbeat from Democrats — and some Republicans — about the need to pass election security legislation in the wake of the report from special counsel Robert Mueller that found Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The Kentucky Republican, who believes strongly that elections should be primarily controlled by state and local authorities and not managed by Washington, argues that the federal government has already responded to the problems raised from the 2016 campaign and more does not need to be done at this time. McConnell thinks Democrats have poisoned the water through their early legislative efforts on election security. Still, moving forward with some of the bills pushed by Democrats — namely to require FBI disclosure for any foreign assistance — would amount to an implicit rebuke of Trump, a fight that Republican leaders are eager to avoid. Behind the scenes, congressional Democrats are finalizing their plans to mount a pressure campaign on McConnell in the weeks ahead to try to shame him for his opposition to these matters.

National: Trump says supporters might ‘demand’ that he serve more than two terms as president | Felicia Sonmez/The Washington Post

President Trump on Sunday floated the possibility of staying in office longer than two terms, suggesting in a morning tweet that his supporters might “demand that I stay longer.” The president, who will kick off his reelection campaign on Tuesday with an event in Orlando, has previously joked about serving more than two terms, including at an event in April, when he told a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years.” The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution limits the presidency to two terms. In tweets Sunday morning, Trump also voiced dissatisfaction with recent news coverage of his administration, calling both The Washington Post and the New York Times “the Enemy of the People.” He added: “The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!”

National: FBI faces new hurdle in election interference fight: Donald Trump | Darren Samuelsohn and Natasha Bertrand/Politico

Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian inference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday night, Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter of seconds. In an ABC News interview, the president first proclaimed he would have no problem accepting dirt on his opponents from a foreign power, then said Wray was “wrong” to suggest the FBI needs to know about such offers. The comments, according to interviews with nearly a dozen law enforcement veterans, have undone months of work, essentially inviting foreign spies to meddle with 2020 presidential campaigns and demoralizing the agents trying to stop them. And it’s backed Wray into a corner, they added, putting him in a position where he might have to either publicly chastise the president and risk getting fired, or resign in protest. America’s enemies will see Trump’s comments and likely “come out of the woodwork like never before to try to influence the president,” said longtime FBI veteran Frank Figliuzzi, who served as the bureau’s assistant director for counterintelligence until 2012. “And it’s going to be more difficult to defend against because they’ll try harder than ever to mask their attempts.”

National: ‘Deepfake’ videos called new election threat, with no easy fix | Susannah George/San Francisco Chronicle

“Deepfake” videos pose a clear and growing threat to America’s national security, lawmakers and experts say. The question is what to do about it, and that’s not easily answered. A House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday served up a public warning about the deceptive powers of artificial intelligence software and offered a sobering assessment of how fast the technology is outpacing efforts to stop it. With a crudely altered video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco., fresh on everyone’s minds, lawmakers heard from experts how difficult it will be to combat these fakes and prevent them from being used to interfere in the 2020 election. “We don’t have a general solution,” said David Doermann, a former official with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “This is a cat and a mouse game.” As the ability to detect such videos improves, so does the technology used to make them. The videos are made using facial mapping and artificial intelligence. The altered video of Pelosi, which was viewed more than 3 million times on social media, gave only a glimpse of what the technology can do. Experts dismissed the clip, which was slowed down to make it appear that Pelosi was slurring her words, as nothing more than a “cheap fake.”

National: 2020 Campaigns Remain Vulnerable as Signs of Russian Hackers Re-Emerge | Dustin Volz and Tarini Parti/Wall Street Journal

Many 2020 presidential campaigns face challenges in rebuffing cyberattacks despite taking some steps to beef up security, an issue brought into fresh focus by President Trump’s comments that he might accept information from foreign governments that was damaging to his rivals. Three years after John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, clicked on a spear-phishing email that allowed Russian hackers to break into his account, followed by the publication of his emails by WikiLeaks, campaigns today are hiring security personnel, using encrypted messaging apps and restricting access to sensitive information. But they are falling short in important areas, according to current and former U.S. officials, cybersecurity experts and people familiar with the operations of various campaigns. Those include an unwillingness to share information among campaigns about attempted hacks, regulations that prevent campaigns from accepting free or discounted security services, and technological advances that make deterring threats more difficult. Already there are signs that the same foreign forces that targeted the Clinton campaign are resurfacing.

National: Trump smashed months of FBI work to thwart election interference | Daren Samuelsohn and Natasha Bertrand

Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian interference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter of seconds. In an ABC News interview, the president first proclaimed he would have no problem accepting dirt on his opponents from a foreign power, then said Wray was “wrong” to suggest the FBI needs to know about such offers. The comments, according to interviews with nearly a dozen law enforcement veterans, have undone months of work, essentially inviting foreign spies to meddle with 2020 presidential campaigns and demoralizing the agents trying to stop them. And it has backed Wray into a corner, they added, putting him in a position where he might have to either publicly chastise the president and risk getting fired, or resign in protest. America’s enemies will see Trump’s comments and likely “come out of the woodwork like never before to try to influence the president,” said longtime FBI veteran Frank Figliuzzi, who served as the bureau’s assistant director for counterintelligence until 2012. “And it’s going to be more difficult to defend against because they’ll try harder than ever to mask their attempts.”

National: Election security threats increasing pressure on state governments | Mekhala Roy/Search Security

The rise of attacks on government agencies and election security threats have increased cybersecurity responsibilities for public sector officials, according to experts. According to Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, secretaries of state around the country are not just doing the work necessary to ensure election security, but they are also looking at ways to strengthen their organization’s overall cybersecurity posture. Condos, who also serves as the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, spoke at the Route Fifty Cybersecurity Roadshow in Boston last week, which focused on public sector threats. “I never thought cybersecurity would be a big part of my role, as it has become,” Condos said in his keynote. “As public sector officials, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the private data of the people we serve. As secretaries of state, we take to work with protecting our election integrity with incredible seriousness, and we act rapidly when a situation presents itself.” But effective cybersecurity takes diligence and vigilance — and funding, Condos informed attendees.

National: Trump’s comments blur line between ‘oppo research’ and stolen information | Bridget Bowman/Roll Call

President Donald Trump’s argument in an interview that it was acceptable, and even common, to use opposition research from foreign governments threw a spotlight Thursday on how campaigns research opponents and whether they draw a line at foreign interference. Trump said in a Wednesday interview with ABC News he would consider accepting “oppo research” from a foreign government and wouldn’t necessarily alert the FBI. He also said members of Congress “all do it, they always have.” Lawmakers from both parties quickly pushed back on that characterization. Both parties have campaign staff and outside groups that work to uncover negative information about political opponents, but that research does not involve help from foreign governments. “I’ve lost track of how many campaigns I’ve been a part of, but can say with 1,000 percent confidence that I, and the people I’ve worked with, have never received ‘dirt’ on an opponent from a foreign adversary, let alone solicited it,” said Shripal Shah, vice president of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research super PAC.

National: Trump hit with bipartisan criticism for welcoming foreign help in 2020 election | Eli Stokols, Noah Bierman and Chris Megerian/Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump, after two years of hammering home a simple, powerful defense — “no collusion!” — came under bipartisan fire Thursday after he said he would gladly “listen” if a foreign government offered him dirt on a political opponent, and asserted there would be nothing wrong with doing so. The president’s defiant comments in a television interview suggest special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s final report — which found “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 election aimed at helping Trump win — did not so much chasten Trump as embolden him. National security veterans warned that Trump’s cavalier attitude all but invited foreign meddling in the 2020 race, raising the stakes as election officials and campaigns worry about sophisticated “deepfake” videos and other disinformation aimed at influencing voters. “Every hostile intelligence service in the world is listening to that,” said Robert Anderson, a former assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. “Forget Russia, it’s everybody. It’s China, it’s Iran.” The president’s stated willingness to accept foreign help in an election set off a cascade of criticism Thursday, spurring fresh Democratic calls for impeachment and some Republican expressions of concern, if not condemnation. Under federal law, foreigners are barred from donating money or making gifts to influence U.S. elections.

National: Homeland, Judiciary Democrat asks Pelosi to form election security task force | Lindsey McPherson/Roll Call

Rep. Lou Correa is asking Speaker Nancy Pelosi to form a task force to examine proposals for combating foreign influence and ensuring U.S. electoral systems are secure, according to a letter obtained by CQ Roll Call. The House Homeland Security and Judiciary Committee member wrote to his fellow California Democrat citing Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings that foreign actors compromised U.S. election security as reason such a group is needed. “The report found that the Russian military launched and planned an attack on our nation and our political system,” Correa wrote in the letter to Pelosi. “They used cyber techniques to hack into our computers and networks. They stole private information and then disclosed that information through fake online profiles. They posed as American citizens and manipulated data for an agenda they agreed with.” In light of that “attack on our democratic process,” Correa said it’s incumbent upon members of Congress need to ensure the nation’s electoral system is safe and free of foreign influence.

National: Klobuchar, Wyden demand answers from FBI on 2016 election hacking incidents | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are demanding answers from the FBI on its response to Russia attempting to hack voting machine company VR Systems during the 2016 presidential election. The incident was revealed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which said Russia in August 2016 targeted employees of “a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network.” The company wasn’t mentioned in the report, but VR Systems has since been confirmed as the targeted company. In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday, Klobuchar and Wyden asked the FBI what steps it took after VR Systems alerted the FBI in August 2016 that it had found suspicious IP addresses on its systems. “VR Systems indicates they did not know that these IP addresses were part of a larger pattern until 2017, which suggests that the FBI may not have followed up with VR Systems in 2016 about the nature of the threat they faced,” the senators wrote.

National: Mitch McConnell is Making the 2020 Election Open Season for Hackers | Sue Halpern/The New Yorker

On May 21st, four commissioners who compose the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (E.A.C.) were asked to attest, in Congress, that they agreed with the findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. It was a strange and oddly suspenseful moment in what might have been a routine oversight hearing of the House Administration Committee. The E.A.C. is a small, relatively obscure agency, established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (H.A.V.A.), an election-modernization bill that was passed in response to the disastrous failure of voting equipment during the 2000 Presidential election. H.A.V.A. allocated over three billion dollars to the states to upgrade their election systems and authorized the E.A.C. to distribute it. The E.A.C. was also mandated to advise election officials and oversee the testing and certification of voting and vote-tabulation machines. Seventeen months away from the next Presidential election, it could be leading the charge against future cyberattacks. It is not.

National: Ex-NSA director says Mueller report highlights risks of foreign interference | Morgan Chalfant/The Hill

Former National Security Agency (NSA) Director Mike Rogers says the full report by special counsel Robert Mueller shows just how important it is for the government to be laser-focused on stopping interference in its elections by foreign governments. “That should be totally unacceptable, totally unallowable, and we ought to be focused on what are we going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because it’s not going to go away,” Rogers said in a wide-ranging interview with The Hill. Rogers, who retired his uniform a year ago, urged the public to read Mueller’s report to judge its findings independently, describing the breadth of the Russian effort as chilling. “I think the breadth of the Russians’ effort, the amount of time, the complexity of that effort — it didn’t surprise me, but again, I think it’s something that ought to make people step back and say, ‘Wow, this wasn’t a casual effort,’ ” Rogers said. “This was a broad, sustained, comprehensive strategy about how we are going to attempt to influence and impact the 2016 election.”

National: Unfinished Business: What Mueller Didn’t Cover, But Congress Can | John T. Nelson/Just Security

The House Intelligence Committee hearings on the first volume of the Mueller report and the FBI’s underlying counterintelligence probe are scheduled to begin Wednesday with the testimony of two former senior Bureau officials and a former Assistant US Attorney. As one of these witnesses, Stephanie Douglas, has written of Russia’s election interference efforts in Just Security, “I am not sure there are many intelligence plans which work any better than this one.” The use of the present tense is unlikely to be accidental. Despite its thoroughness in investigating certain aspects of Russia’s election interference, the Mueller report addresses only a narrow slice of a larger intelligence story that is still unfolding. President Donald Trump’s curious relationship with Russia did not begin with the Trump Tower Moscow deal and it has not ended with his inauguration—more or less the time frame analyzed in the first volume of the report. Chairman Adam Schiff’s committee’s oversight mandate certainly includes the activities and relationships described in volume one, but is not limited to them. There are many questions to be asked, therefore, not only about why Mueller framed his investigation as he did, but also about what he left outside of the picture entirely. So what exactly are the potential lines of further inquiry for Congress to pursue?

National: McConnell: Senate will hold election security briefing | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said that the Senate will have an election security briefing in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “We intend to have a briefing on election security,” McConnell told reporters during a weekly press conference while not responding to questions about whether the upper chamber will take up any election security legislation. McConnell’s comments mark the first time that he has confirmed he will hold an all-members election security briefing since Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor that he had received assurances from the Senate GOP leader that there would be a closed-door briefing with administration officials. “I have some positive news. I have spoken to the Republican leader about that request. He has assured me we will have a briefing,” Schumer said from the Senate floor last week.

National: House panel approves $408 million boost for CISA | FCW