National: Trump-Russia inquiry in ‘grave doubt’ after GOP chair briefs White House | The Guardian

The top Democrat on one of the congressional committees investigating ties between Donald Trump and Russia has raised “grave doubt” over the viability of the inquiry after its Republican chairman shared information with the White House and not their committee colleagues. In the latest wild development surrounding the Russia inquiry that has created an air of scandal around Trump, Democrat Adam Schiff effectively called his GOP counterpart, Devin Nunes, a proxy for the White House, questioning his conduct. “These actions raise enormous doubt about whether the committee can do its work,” Schiff said late Wednesday afternoon after speaking with Nunes, his fellow Californian, before telling MSNBC that evidence tying Trump to Russia now appeared “more than circumstantial”. Two days after testimony from the directors of the FBI and NSA that dismissed any factual basis to Trump’s 4 March claim that Barack Obama had him placed under surveillance, Nunes publicly stated he was “alarmed” to learn that the intelligence agencies may have “incidentally” collected communications from Trump and his associates.

National: Comey stands by U.S. intelligence assessment that Putin wanted Trump to win election | Los Angeles Times

Two of the nation’s top counter-intelligence officials stood by the U.S. intelligence assessment in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government sought to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election. Under questioning from Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, said nothing has changed since they issued their Jan. 6 report on Russian interference in the election. The report found that senior Russian officials, including Putin, wanted to undermine the U.S. democratic process, hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump’s campaign. Comey and Rogers declined to provide details on how the intelligence community reached that assessment.

National: F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms | The New York Times

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, took the extraordinary step on Monday of announcing that the agency is investigating whether members of President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mr. Comey’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump, who has insisted that “Russia is fake news” that was cooked up by his political opponents to undermine his presidency. Mr. Comey placed a criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House and said officers would pursue it “no matter how long that takes.” Joined by Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, Mr. Comey also dismissed Mr. Trump’s claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor during the campaign, a sensational accusation that has served as a distraction in the public debate over Russian election interference. Taken together, the two provided the most definitive statement yet that Mr. Trump’s accusation was false.

National: Russian hackers were likely surprised by blowback from cyberattacks on U.S. elections, analysts say | Los Angeles Times

The Russian cyberattacks that targeted last year’s U.S. presidential elections were as much about wanting to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House as about proving to the world that the Kremlin was capable of pulling off this feat, a leading Russian expert on cybersecurity said Monday. “Russian hackers deliberately tried to weaken positions of Hillary Clinton,” said Andrei Soldatov, author of a 2015 book on the Kremlin’s cyberwars against its critics. “She was seen as Russia’s enemy No. 1, a person who inspired Moscow protests [against President Vladimir Putin], a person who would harm Russia the most.” But Moscow may have miscalculated the fallout of its intrusion, which has so far led to resignation of a high-ranking U.S. official, congressional investigations and a bipartisan circling of the wagons around the need to protect the integrity of America’s democracy, several leading Russia experts said.

National: Russia will strike US elections again, FBI warns | ITworld

Future U.S. elections may very well face more Russian attempts to interfere with the outcome, the FBI and the National Security Agency warned on Monday. “They’ll be back,” said FBI director James Comey. “They’ll be back in 2020. They may be back in 2018.” Comey made the comment during a congressional hearing on Russia’s suspected efforts to meddle with last year’s presidential election. Allegedly, cyberspies from the country hacked several high-profile Democratic groups and people, in an effort to tilt the outcome in President Donald Trump’s favor. Although Russia has denied any involvement, the FBI expects the country to strike again. “One of the lessons they [Russia] may draw from this is they were successful,” Comey said. “Because they introduced chaos and division and discord.” NSA director Michael Rogers agreed: “I fully expect them to continue this level of activity.”

National: Election systems security under increasing scrutiny | GCN

Between outdated technology, Russian hacking threats, tight budgets, the president’s promises to investigate voter fraud and incomplete information about federal assistance for securing voting systems, local elections officials have their hands full. In Bexar County, Texas, which is saddled with the oldest elections technology in the state, officials scour eBay for Zip disks, the storage media the county’s system uses to help merge results.”I’d be dead in the water without our technical support people looking online to buy the pieces and parts to keep us going,” Jacque Callanen, the county’s elections administrator told the Associated Press. Similarly outdated systems are common across the country, but municipalities probably will not be able to foot the bill for new systems without help from their state legislatures, which are also strapped for cash.

National: Democratic bill would codify elections as critical infrastructure | The Hill

A new bill from three House Democrats would codify elections as critical infrastructure. Reps. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Keith Ellison (Minn.) and Hank Johnson (Ga.) introduced the Securing America’s Future Elections (SAFE) Act, which would launch several cybersecurity programs, including codifying the decision from former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to reclassify elections as critical infrastructure. Designating a sector as critical infrastructure gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) additional leeway to provide assistance and training toward its security. The label currently applies to 16 sectors, including power, telecommunications and emergency services. “One thing Democrats and Republicans should agree on is that we should be doing everything in our power to guarantee the sovereignty of our county and the integrity of our elections. This bill will do just that,” said Pocan in a written statement.

National: Lessons from 2016: Try same-day voter registration, rethink Electoral College, report says | Philadelphia Inquirer

States with the highest voter turnout in 2016 offered same-day registration or were targeted battlegrounds in the tight presidential election, according to an analysis released Thursday by Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project. The six highest-ranking states have rules that allow eligible voters to register at the polls or update their information there before casting a ballot. In order, they were: Minnesota (74.8 percent), Maine (72.8 percent), New Hampshire (72.5 percent), Colorado (72.1 percent), Wisconsin (70.5 percent), and Iowa (69 percent). All but Minnesota, the leader for the second presidential election in a row, also were targeted by the presidential candidates. This was the first report on 2016 turnout to be based on certified election returns.

National: Running for president? Some states want tax returns public | Associated Press

Lawmakers in nearly half the states want to add a requirement for presidential candidates: Show us your tax returns. The issue has dogged President Donald Trump, who became the first presidential candidate in modern times to refuse to make his returns public. It flared anew this week after MSNBC said it had obtained two pages of Trump’s 2005 federal return, prompting the administration to release the documents preemptively. State lawmakers around the country, mostly Democrats, want to ensure transparency in future presidential campaigns so voters can evaluate candidates’ sources of income and any possible conflicts of interest. Most of the bills would require presidential contenders to release copies of their returns as a condition for appearing on that state’s ballot, although it’s unclear whether they could pass constitutional muster. The aim is to find out about potential conflicts that candidates might have before they take office, said Hawaii Rep. Chris Lee, a Democrat who introduced one of the Hawaii bills.

National: Russia Election Meddling Gets Airing on the Hill With Comey | Bloomberg

Members of the House Intelligence Committee will press FBI Director James Comey to provide details of any investigation his agents are conducting over contacts between President Donald Trump’s associates and Russia, during or after the presidential campaign. Comey on Monday will testify publicly for the first time since Trump’s inauguration about Russia’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election and the web of conspiracies — or conspiracy theories — entangling Trump and those close to him. While the FBI and other intelligence agencies have already found that Russia hacked into Democratic emails and leaked them in an attempt to help Trump, members of intelligence panel want more information from Comey.

National: Redistricting Reform Advocates Say The Real ‘Rigged System’ Is Gerrymandering | NPR

If the election results of 2016 were really about rejecting the political establishment, then Congress didn’t get the memo. After all, 97 percent of incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives seeking re-election won even as national polls show overwhelming disapproval of Congress. Advocates for redistricting reform hope voters are ready to pay more attention to the otherwise wonky issue of legislative districts are drawn, a system that’s helped send so many incumbents back to Washington and state capitols, year after year. One group trying to change that system is One Virginia 2021, a nonpartisan organization that’s challenging the constitutionality of 11 state legislative district boundaries.

National: States scramble to replace aging machines | Associated Press

At least once a year, staffers in one of Texas’ largest election offices scour the web for a relic from a bygone technology era: Zip disks. The advanced version of the floppy disk that was cutting edge in the mid-1990s plays a vital role in tallying votes in Bexar County, where like other places around the U.S., money to replace antiquated voting equipment is scarce. “I’d be dead in the water without our technical support people looking online to buy the pieces and parts to keep us going,” said Jacque Callanen, elections administrator in the county that includes San Antonio and had 1 million-plus registered voters in the 2016 election. Purchased in 2002, Bexar County’s voting equipment is among the oldest in Texas. The Zip disks the county uses to help merge results and allow paper ballots to be tallied with final election totals are no longer manufactured, so staff members snap them up by the dozens off of eBay and Amazon.

National: Trump, Sessions, Gorsuch and the New Battle Over Voting Rights | US News & World Report

When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act four years ago, it gave the green light to state lawmakers eager to restrict access to the polls and eliminated the Justice Department’s role as traffic cop on whether those laws were necessary or appropriate. Activists then turned to the courts, with some success: Last year, federal judges struck down a North Carolina law mandating voters present a valid, government-issued photo ID at the polls, along with cutbacks on early voting, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal. While lawyers and civil rights leaders have won some big battles in fights over voter ID laws, diminished early voting and reductions in polling places, experts say the future of voting rights remains uncertain – due to changes in the political and legal landscape that swept in with President Donald Trump.

National: New report finds that voter turnout in 2016 topped 2012 | The Hill

More voters cast ballots in November’s elections than when President Obama won reelection in 2012, though the number of Americans who showed up to vote remains well below all-time highs set half a century ago. About 139 million Americans, or 60.2 percent of the voting-eligible population, cast a ballot in November’s elections, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project. That compares with 58.6 percent of eligible voters who turned out in 2012, but it’s below the 62.2 percent who turned out to help elect Obama for the first time in 2008. Last year, President Trump won just shy of 63 million votes — enough to secure a majority of the Electoral College, even though he fell almost 3 million votes shy of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The states where Trump and Clinton battled most fiercely also tended to be those where voter turnout was highest. Nine of the 13 states where voter turnout was highest were battleground states.

National: Senator asks DHS for plans to treat election infrastructure as critical | The Hill

A Democratic senator is looking for answers on whether the Trump administration will keep in place the designation of election infrastructure as “critical” and, if so, how the new administration plans to implement it. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) directed a number of questions at Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly in a letter this month in order to better understand the designation, which was made by his predecessor Jeh Johnson just weeks before Barack Obama left the White House. The designation was also made in timing with the release of the intelligence community’s report on Russian election interference, which assessed that Russian intelligence accessed elements of state and local electoral boards. In doing so, the Obama administration opened up election infrastructure—including polling places, vote tabulations locations, and technology such as voting machines and registration databases-–to federal protections upon request from state and local governments.

National: Top Election Officials Have No Idea What Trump Is Planning To Do In His Voter Fraud Investigation | The Huffington Post

Despite insistence that widespread voter fraud exists and pledges to investigate the matter fully, it seems the Trump administration has not bothered to contact top state election officials across the country. The Huffington Post asked all 50 secretaries of state and election officials in the District of Columbia if they had been contacted by the White House or Department of Justice regarding the forthcoming investigation. Not a single secretary of state’s office responded to say that it had. Forty-one different secretaries of state and election officials in the District of Columbia said they had not been contacted. Eight states ― Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wyoming ― did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Texas Attorney General’s office, which handles investigations into voter fraud in the state, declined to comment. “Not a peep,” Linda Lamone, the state administrator of elections in Maryland wrote in an email.

National: Trump in Graham’s cross hairs as Russia probe kicks off | Politico

Lindsey Graham lacks the resources and access that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have to investigate Russia’s meddling in the presidential election. But his Senate Judiciary subcommittee has something the intelligence panels don’t: a Republican chairman viewed not as a Donald Trump ally but as a fierce critic, who has no qualms with bucking party leaders to unravel the mystery of Russia’s interference in the election. Graham and his Democratic partner, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, will seize the spotlight Wednesday during a public hearing on Russia’s election interference, to be held by Graham’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, which has jurisdiction over the FBI.

National: Senator Whitehouse: Comey to say whether FBI probing Russia, Trump campaign | CNN

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Tuesday that FBI Director James Comey promised to tell him Wednesday whether the FBI is investigating ties between Russia and the campaign of President Donald Trump. The Rhode Island Democrat said that Comey made the promise in a March 2 meeting with him and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. According to Whitehouse, Comey assured them he would confirm if an investigation exists “and the scope of their Russia/Trump investigation because he had not been able to at that point say that there was one.”

National: Republicans relieved Trump eased up on voter fraud claims | Politico

Prominent Republicans across the country are breathing a sigh of relief that President Donald Trump has so far not aggressively pursued his pledge for a “major investigation” into his allegations of widespread voter fraud that he claims robbed him the popular vote. Current and former GOP state party chairs and other officials said in interviews that the unverified allegation was at best a distraction and at worst a damaging statement that could erode confidence in elections. And even as Trump continues to make some outrageous claims — including that former President Barack Obama tapped his Trump Tower phones — he’s now directing much of his attention to replacing Obamacare and juicing up the job market.

National: Lawmakers eye cyber help for states | The Hill

Efforts are growing in Congress to give states more federal help on cybersecurity, amid heightened fears about the vulnerability of state data systems. A flurry of bills introduced this month would compel the federal government to share resources and assistance with state and local governments to fix cyber vulnerabilities and prepare for hacks. At least one of the bills deals specifically with securing voting systems in the wake of Russia’s cyberattacks on political organizations during the 2016 campaign. That bill, introduced by Democratic Reps. Gerry Connolly (Va.) and Jim Langevin (R.I.), would offer grants to encourage states to use newer and more secure voting systems. It would also give grants to states for boosting access to the polls. “In 43 of the 50 states, we’re dealing with outdated voting equipment more than a decade old,” Connolly told The Hill. “We had Russian hacking, and we want to make sure people can feel secure about voting.”

National: FEC earning congressional attention — for the wrong reasons | Center for Public Integrity

The Federal Election Commission — an agency of clashing commissioners, seething staffers and key vacancies — may soon face congressmen who wonder: Why’s the agency a basket case? Such a trip under Congress’ microscope could come in the form of a Committee on House Administration oversight hearing, something the FEC hasn’t endured since 2011, when super PACs were still novel and the now-seminal Citizens United v. FEC decision wasn’t yet two years old. A planned oversight hearing in 2014 never materialized. “It’s time,” Committee on House Administration member Barry Loudermilk, a Republican congressman from Georgia, told the Center for Public Integrity. “We should take the opportunity and have a re-evaluation.” An oversight hearing is “both urgent and necessary” and should be conducted “sooner rather than later,” said Jamie Fleet, a spokesman for Rep. Robert Brady, the committee’s ranking Democrat.

National: WikiLeaks aids doubters of Russian election hacking | The Hill

WikiLeaks is helping to cast doubt on the conclusion of intelligence agencies that the Russian government was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee, in what appears to be the latest disinformation campaign orchestrated by Moscow. The site leaked a trove of purported CIA hacking tools this week and zeroed in on what it called the agency’s effort to “misdirect attribution” of cyber attacks to other nations, including Russia. Fake accounts on Twitter seized on the claim to dispute that Russia sought to interfere in the U.S. election last year, noted Ryan Kalember, senior vice president for cybersecurity strategy at Proofpoint. He described the WikiLeaks release as playing into a larger “disinformation campaign” aimed at undermining the intelligence community’s attribution of cyber attacks, particularly those to Russia.

National: Credibility a question for GOP-led probe of Russia, election | Associated Press

As congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election ramp up, so is the political division, raising questions about whether lawmakers’ work will be viewed as credible. The House this week scheduled its first public hearing, which some swiftly dismissed as political theater. Even as lawmakers began to review classified information at CIA’s headquarters, Democrats continued to call for an independent panel and special prosecutor. The dynamic underscored the escalating concerns about whether the Republican-led investigations will have the funding, focus and, perhaps most importantly, bipartisan buy-in to produce findings that are broadly accepted and definitive.

National: FBI examining Alfa Bank pinging Trump Organization servers during election | Business Insider

The FBI is examining why a computer server for a Russian bank led by oligarchs with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin had a disproportionate interest in reaching a server used by the Trump Organization during the US presidential campaign. CNN reported on Thursday that last summer a computer server owned by the Russia-based Alfa Bank “repeatedly looked up the contact information for a computer server being used by the Trump Organization — far more than other companies did, representing 80% of all lookups to the Trump server.” Slate and The New York Times first reported on the unusual server activity, which was akin to looking up someone’s phone number thousands of times. The Times reported on October 31 that the FBI examined the server activity and “ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.”

National: Mike Pence’s Investigation Into Voter Fraud Is Off To A Slow Start | NPR

You might be asking yourself, whatever happened to Vice President Mike Pence’s investigation into President Trump’s claim that millions of people voted illegally in November? It’s been over a month since the president said he would ask Pence to lead a “major investigation” into those claims and the overall issue of voter fraud. Well, apparently, not much has happened so far. A spokesman for Pence said in an e-mail this week that they’re “still doing the necessary groundwork.” And White House Spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday that the Vice President has been “talking to folks potentially to serve on” his task force and that several secretaries of state have expressed interest. But a spokesperson for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) says they’re unaware of any of their members being approached to participate in the investigation. And when NASS representatives went to the White House Tuesday to get an update on the vice president’s plans, they were told there was “no information to share” at this time.

National: Lawmakers Look to Curb Foreign Influence in State Elections | Stateline

Amid concerns that Russia helped sway the 2016 presidential election, several states are considering legislation that would bar companies with significant foreign ties from contributing money in state campaigns. A long-standing federal statute bars noncitizens and foreign companies from donating directly to candidates or political parties at the federal, state and local levels. Another law prohibits businesses from directly donating to federal-level candidates or political parties. But the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case cleared the way for corporations and unions to pay for political ads made independently of candidates’ campaigns. The high court ruled that corporations and unions are associations of U.S. citizens with a First Amendment right to political expression.

National: State Republicans Push For More Restrictive Voting Laws | NPR

Vice President Pence has yet to begin a promised investigation into allegations by President Trump that millions of people voted illegally in November. But that hasn’t stopped state lawmakers from taking action they say would limit voter fraud, even though the president’s claims have been widely discredited. Legislation to tighten voter ID and other requirements has already been introduced in about half the states this year. And in statehouse after statehouse, the debate has had a familiar ring. “We do not have a voter fraud problem in North Dakota,” Democratic Rep. Mary Schneider argued last month during a state House floor debate of a measure that would tighten that state’s voter ID requirements and increase penalties for voter fraud. “To say that there’s not a voter fraud problem in North Dakota, I think that’s another inaccurate statement. Maybe there have been no convicted cases but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have an issue,” countered Republican Christopher Olson, shortly before the measure was approved by a vote of 74-16.

National: Democrats seek special prosecutor in Russia election meddling | Associated Press

Democrats pushed Tuesday for a special prosecutor to examine the Trump administration’s potential ties to Russia, using a confirmation hearing to urge the No. 2 pick at the Justice Department to consider handing over any such investigation to an independent overseer. “We need steel spines, not weak knees when it comes to political independence in the Department of Justice,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat. The remarks came during a hearing for Rod Rosenstein, a longtime federal prosecutor tapped for deputy attorney general, which instead became a referendum on Russian meddling in the presidential election.

National: FBI investigation continues into ‘odd’ computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization | CNN

Federal investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there was a computer server connection between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank, sources close to the investigation tell CNN. Questions about the possible connection were widely dismissed four months ago. But the FBI’s investigation remains open, the sources said, and is in the hands of the FBI’s counterintelligence team — the same one looking into Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 election. One U.S. official said investigators find the server relationship “odd” and are not ignoring it. But the official said there is still more work for the FBI to do. Investigators have not yet determined whether a connection would be significant.

National: Intel agencies, House panel near agreement on Russia election probe | McClatchy

The House Intelligence Committee is nearing an agreement with the nation’s intelligence agencies for full access to the information that underlay the recent classified report on Russian efforts to interfere in last year’s presidential election. Among the information the committee hopes to gain access to is any evidence that implicates Russian President Vladimir Putin in ordering the hacks of Democratic National Committee computers and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. In a report delivered Jan. 6 to then-President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency said Putin had personally ordered the hacks as part of an effort to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign. During the course of the campaign, the agencies concluded, Putin’s emphasis changed to helping Trump win election.