National: ‘Terrifying, Nixonian’: Comey’s firing takes democracy to dark new territory | The Guardian

Donald Trump’s decision to fire the FBI director, James Comey, who was investigating links between the president’s associates and the Russian government, has taken US democracy into dark and dangerous new territory. That was the assessment of Democratic leaders, legal observers and security experts last night, with some drawing direct comparisons to Watergate and tinpot dictatorships. FBI directors are given 10-year terms in office, precisely to insulate them from politics. It is very rare to fire them. The last time it happened was 24 years ago, when Bill Clinton sacked William Sessions, who had clung to office despite a damning internal ethics report detailing abuse of office, including the use of an FBI plane for family trips. Comey’s sacking has taken place in very different circumstances. It came on a night when CNN reported that a grand jury had issued subpoenas in the investigation of the Trump camp’s contacts with Russian officials, and after had confirmed to Congress that more than one person connected to the Trump campaign was the subject of an FBI counter-intelligence investigation. He had also indicated that he was investigating leaks from inside the FBI to the Trump campaign in the course of the election.

National: Trump Fires FBI Director Comey Amid Russia Meddling Inquiry | Bloomberg

President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey amid the agency’s investigation of Russian interference in last year’s election, saying the bureau needed new leadership to restore “public trust and confidence.” Trump’s decision Tuesday means that he will get to nominate Comey’s successor while the agency is deep into the Russia inquiry, including whether any of Trump’s associates colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. Democrats condemned Comey’s dismissal, calling it an effort to cut short the Russia probe and demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to carry it forward. According to the White House, though, it wasn’t the Russia investigation that led to Comey’s dismissal. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Comey was fired because of his handling of the probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server — even though the facts of that inquiry were well-known at the time Trump took office and asked Comey to stay on the job.

National: Grand jury subpoenas issued in FBI’s Russia investigation | CNN

Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey. The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI’s broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia. The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. The US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, the Justice Department and the FBI also declined to comment.

National: James Clapper: Russia Is ‘Emboldened’ to Interfere in Elections After 2016 | Associated Press

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says Russia is now “emboldened” to interfere in elections in the U.S. and around the world. Clapper testified Monday before a Senate judiciary subcommittee about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. He says Russia’s meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election amounted to a “high-water mark” in its decades-long efforts to interfere in political contests. Clapper says he hopes Americans recognize the severity of the threat posed by Russia and that the U.S. moves to counter Moscow before it “further erodes the fabric of our democracy.”

National: Sally Yates Tells Senators She Warned Trump About Michael Flynn | The New York Times

Less than a week into the Trump administration, Sally Q. Yates, the acting attorney general, hurried to the White House with an urgent concern. The president’s national security adviser, she said, had lied to the vice president about his Russian contacts and was vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. “We wanted to tell the White House as quickly as possible,” Ms. Yates told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Monday. “To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.” But President Trump did not immediately fire the adviser, Michael T. Flynn, over the apparent lie or the susceptibility to blackmail. Instead, Mr. Flynn remained in office for 18 more days. Only after the news of his false statements broke publicly did he lose his job on Feb. 13.

National: Trump seizes on election rules to raise money, push agenda in new ways | USA Today

President Trump has headlined four big rallies in the first months of his presidency to tout his agenda and savage his foes. A new $1.5 million television ad campaign promotes his accomplishments and attacks the media. The flurry of activity to build support for Trump’s policies isn’t organized by the White House but springs from his re-election campaign, which filed paperwork allowing him to begin raising and spending money on Jan. 20 — the same day he took the oath of office. By contrast, both President Obama and President George W. Bush had been in office for more than two years before they filed for re-election. Traditionally, presidents use federal money to push their policies and refrain from overtly political activity until later in their terms. But Trump’s unorthodox move to immediately start fundraising allows him to capitalize on federal election laws to push his agenda in new ways. He can rally his supporters, openly denounce his political enemies and pressure recalcitrant lawmakers in Congress — all without running afoul of rules that bar using taxpayer money for politics.

National: Sally Yates to testify about her discussions with the White House on Russia | The Washington Post

Sally Yates was the attorney general for only 10 days — an Obama administration holdover whose role was to quietly manage the Justice Department until the Trump administration could quickly replace her. Instead, her brief time in the job has fueled months of fierce political debate on the White House and Russia. On Monday, Yates is to testify before a Senate subcommittee about her discussions with the White House, testimony that was delayed for more than a month after a previously scheduled appearance before a House committee was canceled amid a legal dispute over whether she would even be allowed to discuss the subject.

National: After promising to cooperate, ex-Trump adviser Carter Page turns inquiry back on Senate panel | The Washington Post

Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser whose interactions with Russia are under FBI investigation, has repeatedly said he wants to cooperate with Congress’s Russia probes to clear his name. But in a letter this week to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Page appeared to initially duck specific questions regarding his interactions with Russian officials, suggesting that the panel seek that information from inside the U.S. government instead. In an email to The Post, Page characterized the letter as a “preliminary response” to a Senate request that he begin providing detailed information no later than May 9, leaving open the possibility he will release more information to the committee in coming days. But he titled the letter a response to “request for even more irrelevant data” and asked that the committee first release to him information the government has collected through surveillance “as a starting point.”

National: Senate Asks Trump Associates for Records of Communication With Russians | The New York Times

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked a number of high-profile Trump campaign associates to hand over emails and other records of dealings with Russians as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election and is prepared to subpoena those who refuse to cooperate, officials said. The requests for the materials were made in letters sent by the committee in the past 10 days, said two officials with knowledge of the contents of the letters. The move is designed to accelerate the committee’s investigation, and represents a new bipartisan challenge to the Trump administration, which has sought to use Republican allies in Congress to blunt the inquiries.

National: U.S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron | The New York Times

After months of trying to move the political needle in favor of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, American far-right activists on Saturday threw their weight behind a hacking attack against her rival, Emmanuel Macron, hoping to cast doubt on an election that is pivotal to France and the wider world. The efforts were the culmination of an extended campaign against Mr. Macron after his candidacy began to gain steam this year, with digital activists in the United States and elsewhere sharing tactics, tips and tricks across the English- and French-speaking parts of the internet. It is unclear whether the leaked documents, which some experts say may be connected to hackers linked to Russia, will affect the outcome of the election on Sunday between Ms. Le Pen, the far-right candidate from the National Front, and Mr. Macron, an independent centrist. But the role of American far-right groups in promoting the breach online highlights their growing resolve to spread extremist messages beyond the United States.

National: FBI Director: If left unchecked, Russian hackers will change vote tallies in a future U.S. election | Cyberscoop

FBI Director James Comey predicts that if left undeterred, Russian hackers will one day attempt to change the vote tally in a U.S. election. Comey said as much during a public hearing Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Members asked Comey a series of questions concerning Russia’s ability to conduct damaging cyber-operations against both the U.S. and its allies. “In my view, [Russia is] the greatest threat of any nation on earth given their intention and capability,” Comey blankly stated. Last year, in the months preceding the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8, the Homeland Security Department discovered a series of digital attacks aimed specifically at voter registration databases used in different states.

National: Russian election hacking ‘wildly successful’ in creating discord: former U.S. lawmaker | Reuters

Russia succeeded in its goals of sowing discord in U.S. politics by meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which will likely inspire similar future efforts, two top former U.S. voices on intelligence said on Tuesday. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers agreed at a panel at Harvard University that Russia likely believed it had achieved its goals and could attempt to repeat its performance in elections in other countries. “Their purpose was to sew discontent and mistrust in our elections they wanted us to be at each others’ throat when it was over,” Rogers said at the panel at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “It’s influencing, I would say, legislative process today. That’s wildly successful.”

National: Private Hearing With Intelligence Chiefs Revives House Inquiry on Russia | The New York Times

The House’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election lurched back to life on Thursday, as a closed-door hearing with James B. Comey, director of the F.B.I., and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, cleared the way for the inquiry to move forward. Representatives K. Michael Conaway of Texas, the newly minted Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation, and Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat, said they were inviting more witnesses and requesting documents — effectively restarting the investigation that halted in recent months amid political infighting. Those witnesses will include Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general who was fired by President Trump, they said. Plans for a public hearing with Ms. Yates in March were scrapped at the last minute despite protest from committee Democrats. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the committee’s chairman, argued that they first needed more time with Mr. Comey and Admiral Rogers.

National: Comey says he feels mildly nauseous to think news of Clinton emails might have influenced election | Associated Press

FBI Director James Comey told Congress Wednesday that revealing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email probe just before Election Day came down to a painful, complicated choice between “really bad” and “catastrophic” options. He said he’d felt “mildly nauseous” to think he might have tipped the election outcome but in hindsight would change nothing. “I would make the same decision,” Comey declared during a lengthy hearing in which Democratic senators grilled him on the seeming inconsistency between the Clinton disclosure 11 days before the election and his silence about the bureau’s investigation into possible contacts between Russia and Trump’s campaign. Comey, offering an impassioned public defense of how he handled the election-year issues, insisted that the FBI’s actions in both investigations were consistent. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI cannot take into account how it might benefit or harm politicians. “I can’t consider for a second whose political futures will be affected and in what way,” Comey told the senators. “We have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do that thing.”

National: ‘A cloud of doubt hangs over the FBI’s objectivity’: Senate grills Comey on Clinton and Russia probes | Business Insider

The Senate Judiciary Committee grilled FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday about his handling of the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s email server and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s chairman, used his opening statement to assert that there is still no proof that any collusion occurred between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian officials, and that “all this speculation about collusion” is coming from the explosive but unverified Trump-Russia dossier that is “spinning wild conspiracy theories.”

National: James Comey defends Clinton email decision but warns of threat from Russia | The Guardian

FBI director James Comey on Wednesday described Russia as “the greatest threat” to US democracy, but defended his decision to keep secret an investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Moscow despite revealing details of an inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails. Giving evidence to a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee, Comey offered his most extensive explanation to date of the thinking behind his different approaches to the two investigations. Clinton claimed on Tuesday that Comey’s 28 October letter to leading members of Congress about new emails that had been found damaged voter perceptions of her and cost her the election. “If the election had been on 27 October, I would be your president,” the former Democratic presidential candidate said. The discovery of the emails ultimately made no difference to the FBI decision not to press charges over the use of the private server.

National: How cybersleuths decided Russia was behind US election hack | CNET

It was a bombshell. Operatives from two Russian spy agencies had infiltrated computers of the Democratic National Committee, months before the US national election. One agency — nicknamed Cozy Bear by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike — used a tool that was “ingenious in its simplicity and power” to insert malicious code into the DNC’s computers, CrowdStrike’s Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Alperovitch wrote in a June blog post. The other group, nicknamed Fancy Bear, remotely grabbed control of the DNC’s computers. By October, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security agreed that Russia was behind the DNC hack. On Dec. 29, those agencies, together with the FBI, issued a joint statement reaffirming that conclusion. And a week later, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence summarized its findings (PDF) in a declassified (read: scrubbed) report. Even President Donald Trump acknowledged, “It was Russia,” a few days later — although he told “Face the Nation” earlier this week it “could’ve been China.”

National: Full Public FBI Reveal Is Rare for Trump-Russia Type Probes | Associated Press

Don’t expect FBI Director James Comey to reveal much about the bureau’s months-long investigation of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia when he speaks publicly before members of Congress on Wednesday. In fact, there’s no guarantee Comey and his agency will ever fully lay bare those findings for the American public, because such investigations rarely end in criminal charges that offer a full picture. Some measure of information will certainly come to light through multiple congressional investigations. And political pressure will fall on Comey and the Justice Department to make public what investigators have learned.

National: How easy would it be to rig the next election? | ThinkProgress

On May 25, 2014, Russian state broadcaster Channel One reported the winner of the day’s presidential election in Ukraine: with a surprising 37 percent plurality, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the extreme-right paramilitary group Right Sector, would be the new Ukrainian president. According to Channel One, previous favorite Petro Poroshenko received only 29 percent of the vote. These numbers were particularly unexpected because only 0.7 percent of voters had voted for Yarosh, versus the 54.7 percent who had voted for Poroshenko — numbers that news outlets in Ukraine and elsewhere were accurately reporting. Barely a half-hour prior to the announcement of the election results, a cybersecurity team at Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC) removed a virus that had been deployed in its computers. That virus was designed to total 37 percent of votes for Yarosh, and 29 percent for Poroshenko.

National: New chief named for Justice Department unit probing Trump-Russia ties | Politico

A veteran federal prosecutor from Northern Virginia has been tapped to temporarily oversee the Justice Department division handling the ongoing probe into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Dana Boente’s new assignment as Justice’s acting attorney general for national security comes fast on the heels of his most recent high-profile task: serving as the acting deputy attorney general. Rod Rosenstein was sworn in as Justice’s No. 2 official on Wednesday, freeing Boente of those responsibilities. Boente had also unexpectedly became the acting attorney general for a time earlier this year after the holdover Obama appointee was fired by President Donald Trump.

National: UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow | The Guardian

The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to court papers. Reports by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, on possible collusion between the the Trump camp and the Kremlin are at the centre of a political storm in the US over Moscow’s role in getting Donald Trump elected. It was not previously known that the UK intelligence services had also received the dossier but Steele confirmed in a court filing earlier this month that he handed a memorandum compiled in December to a “senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity, on a confidential basis in hard copy form”.

National: House Intelligence Committee reportedly agrees on witness list for Russia probe | Business Insider

The House Intelligence Committee has agreed on a witness list of between 36 and 48 people for its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, CNN reported Wednesday night. Included on the list are current and former associates of President Donald Trump believed to have been in contact with Russian officials during the campaign or transition period. According to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the list includes Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser; Roger Stone, a Trump confidant; Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; and Carter Page, an early Trump campaign adviser. … The full committee has also now gained access to the classified intelligence documents Nunes said he obtained from a source on White House grounds last month, according to CNN. Nunes sparked bipartisan outcry and came under intense scrutiny when he briefed Trump on the documents directly without first sharing them with Schiff.

National: Holder: Trump’s election fraud claims are laying foundation for voter suppression | The Hill

Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday tore into President Trump’s claims of rampant voter fraud, saying the allegations have laid a foundation for voter suppression and more restrictive voter identification laws. “The vote fraud mantra is said so often — it’s almost said robotically — that some people have unthinkingly begun to believe that the issue is real,” Holder said at a National Action Network conference in New York City. “And with recent claims by Mr. Trump of ‘rigged elections’ based on fraud, again without any proof, save the bluster of the candidate, this mistaken belief in voter fraud becomes almost hardwired,” he continued.

National: Senator fears Russian election interference could be ‘normalized’ | The Hill

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said Thursday that Russian meddling in U.S. elections could become “normalized” if the government does not further respond to Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential contest. Shaheen doubled down on her push for an independent investigation of Russia’s actions and more sanctions on Moscow in a speech at the Center for American Progress Action Fund on Thursday afternoon. “If Russia gets a pass on 2016, it could interfere in future U.S. elections not only at the presidential level but at the House and Senate level,” Shaheen said.

National: Facebook found efforts to sway presidential election, elect Trump | CNBC

Facebook says some groups tried to use its platform to sway the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. In a case study of the 2016 presidential election, the company said it found several instances of “information operations,” its term for governments and organizations who attempt to sway political opinion by spreading fake news and other nefarious tactics. The case study was included in Facebook’s white paper on “information operations.” It also detailed ways it was combating “fake news” and other misinformation spread by adding new technologies and creating more security features.

National: Russia’s Interference in the U.S. Election Was Just the Beginning | The Atlantic

Mike Conaway, the Republican who replaced Devin Nunes as head of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election, has described his mission simply: “I just want to find out what happened,” he’s said. The more urgent question elsewhere in the world, however, isn’t confined to the past. It concerns what is happening—not just in the United States but in European democracies as well. In the Netherlands, Dutch authorities counted paper ballots in a recent election by hand to prevent foreign governments—and Russia in particular—from manipulating the results through cyberattacks. In Denmark, the defense minister has accused the Russian government of carrying out a two-year campaign to infiltrate email accounts at his ministry. In the United Kingdom, a parliamentary committee reports that it cannot “rule out” the possibility that “foreign interference” caused a voter-registration site to crash ahead of Britain’s referendum on EU membership. And in France, a cybersecurity firm has just discovered that suspected Russian hackers are targeting the leading presidential candidate. “We are increasingly concerned about cyber-enabled interference in democratic political processes,” representatives from the Group of Seven—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.—declared after meeting in Italy earlier this month. Russia, a member of the group until it was kicked out for annexing Crimea, wasn’t mentioned in the statement. It didn’t need to be. The subtext was clear.

National: Russian hackers heavily targeted news outlet in days before U.S. election, researchers say | Cyberscoop

Hackers working for the Russian government sent a barrage of targeted phishing emails between 2014 and 2016 to employees of major news outlets, and they focused particularly on Al Jazeera in the days before and shortly following the U.S. presidential election, according to new research by cybersecurity firm Trend Micro. It’s unclear exactly why the elite team of hackers — known as APT-28, Fancy Bear or Pawn Storm — focused so heavily on the Qatar-based, state-funded global broadcaster during that short window. Like other news agencies targeted over the longer two-year span, including the New York Times and Buzzfeed, the award-winning outlet covered the election in detail and dedicated a section of its website to election-night coverage.

National: House Russia investigators optimistic under Conaway’s leadership | Politico

Rep. Mike Conaway, the House’s new top Russia investigator, is telling lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee that they should expect to be in Washington more than usual as the beleaguered probe gets a reboot, panel members said after a closed-door meeting Wednesday. Committee Democrats welcomed Conaway’s remarks, describing the Texas Republican as a “straight-shooter” who was committed to a thorough, bipartisan investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, including the possibility of collusion with the Trump campaign.

National: Yates, Clapper To Testify In Open House Hearing On Russian Election Meddling | NPR

Two Obama administration officials will testify in an open hearing before the House Intelligence Committee as part of ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia attempted to help Donald Trump win the election. Investigations by the House, Senate and FBI are examining what exactly Russia did and whether the Trump campaign was involved, among other questions. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper are scheduled to appear before the House committee on May 8. It’s a long-delayed hearing. Yates and Clapper, along with former CIA Director John Brennan, were originally scheduled to testify in late March, but those plans were scuttled amid a simmering soap opera of distrust and missteps within the House committee.

National: Senate gives limited resources to Russia election-meddling probe | Reuters

The Senate’s main investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is equipped with a much smaller staff than previous high-profile intelligence and scandal probes in Congress, which could potentially affect its progress, according to sources and a Reuters review of public records. With only seven staff members initially assigned to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-month-old investigation, progress has been sluggish and minimal, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity. A committee aide, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said two more staff members were being added and a few others were involved less formally.