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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., smacked back at critics who have accused him of leaving the 2020 election vulnerable to Russian hackers, accusing them of “modern-day McCarthyism.” McConnell offered an impassioned 25-minute defense of his election security record on the Senate floor as Democrats accuse him of consistently blocking their bills from coming up to a vote. “I’m not going to let Democrats and their water carriers in the media use Russia’s attack on our democracy as a Trojan horse for partisan wish list items that would not actually make our elections any safer,” McConnell said. “I’m not going to do that.” His stance ensures that election security will play a major role in Senate campaigns that are ramping up now — and Democrats are already seizing the moment to make McConnell look like the face of obstruction. Within minutes of the speech, Amy McGrath, a Kentucky Democrat and retired Marine lieutenant colonel who’s seeking McConnell’s seat, slammed the majority leader on Twitter. McGrath rattled off a list of election security provisions Democrats have sought to mandate, such as paper ballots and security audits for voting machines before asking: “Tell me again how that is partisan, @senatemajldr? Oh right, you can’t.”

National: Our lax cybersecurity risks our elections and our data. We need solutions | Andrew Grotto/CNN

Our national discussions about cybersecurity and privacy follow a frustrating pattern: a headline-grabbing incident like the recent Capital One breach occurs, Congress wrings its hands and policymakers more or less move on. So it is no surprise cybersecurity hasn’t been much of a focus as the race to the 2020 presidential election heats up. The issue is here to stay, and it should be debated by the candidates. Here are some concrete ideas that would significantly improve the safety and security of the nation — but require presidential leadership if they are to come to fruition. The candidates have been justifiably outraged over Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s stonewalling on election security legislation that would direct resources and expertise to state and local governments to help modernize election systems and implement paper-based backups for electronic voting, among other improvements. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned in Congressional hearings last week, the Russians and other bad actors will undoubtedly attempt to threaten the integrity of the 2020 election. This is no time to stand pat — Congress should pass — and the President should sign — legislation on election security before the 2020 election, not after.

National: Democrats take another stab at preventing foreign election interference | Maggie Miller/The Hill

House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would require campaigns to report any foreign contacts to federal authorities, the latest push for election security following last week’s warnings from former special counsel Robert Mueller. The measure — sponsored by Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Lauren Underwood (Ill.), and Jason Crow (Colo.) — would mandate federal campaigns to inform the FBI and Federal Election Commission about any foreign contacts who attempt to donate funds or assist a candidate. Campaigns would also be required to implement a “compliance system” to monitor communication with those foreign contacts. “Guarding our country against another attack on our political system should not be a partisan issue — it is a national security issue and it’s an American issue,” Slotkin said in a statement. The bill will be referred to the House Administration Committee.

National: Russia Is Going to Up Its Game for the 2020 Elections | Matt Laslo/WIRED

One week after Robert Mueller’s testimony shined a spotlight, once again, on election interference, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is feeling the heat. The leader turned heads on the Senate floor Monday as he rose to decry critics who have dubbed him “a Russian asset” and “Moscow Mitch” for stonewalling congressional measures to improve election security. And with momentum building in the House to formally start impeachment proceedings against President Trump, the pressure is unlikely to let up anytime soon. Focusing on election interference from 2016 is backwards thinking, though, at least according to Virginia Senator Mark Warner. With 2020 just around the corner, he tells WIRED—in an exclusive interview—that the upcoming election is where both parties need to direct their attention right now. As the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Warner has long been a vocal proponent of new legislation to strengthen election protections, such as the Honest Ad Act, which would compel Silicon Valley firms to disclose when political ads are paid for by a foreign nation. He’s also behind a bill that would require campaigns to alert federal officials if they’re approached by a foreign operative offering information or other assistance. Both bills have bipartisan support—Senator Susan Collins became the first Republican to cosponsor the Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections Act earlier this week.

National: Why is Mitch McConnell blocking election security bills? Good question. | Amber Phillips/The Washington Post

July 31, 2019

As President Trump’s own FBI director warns that Russians are planning to try to undermine American democracy in the next presidential election, Republican lawmakers led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are blocking bills aimed at blocking foreign hackers from states’ voting systems. Why? Republicans have policy objections to the legislation, but it seems clear that politics is at the forefront of McConnell’s decision-making. Specifically, the politics of pleasing Trump. Trump is so sensitive to findings that Russians tried to help him win in 2016 that a Cabinet secretary was warned against briefing him on it. He’s repeatedly sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community about whether Russians interfered. He’s said he might accept foreign help in his 2020 reelection. And last month, he made light of it all when he mock-scolded Putin in front of cameras. “Don’t meddle in the election,” he said, waving a finger and wearing a smile. That puts McConnell in a tough spot: Pass legislation, which election security experts say is needed, and risk sparking the president’s ire, or block the legislation — and risk increased Russia election interference and public ridicule.

National: ‘Moscow Mitch’ Tag Enrages McConnell and Squeezes G.O.P. on Election Security | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

July 31, 2019

Senator Mitch McConnell is usually impervious to criticism, even celebrating the nasty nicknames critics bestow on him. But Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is incensed by the name “Moscow Mitch,” and even more miffed that he has been called a “Russian asset” by critics who accuse him of single-handedly blocking stronger election security measures after Russia’s interference in 2016. Democrats had been making the case for months, but it was supercharged last week by the testimony of Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, who told the House Intelligence Committee that the Russians were back at it “as we sit here.” Mr. McConnell cites several reasons for his opposition — a longstanding resistance to federal control over state elections, newly enacted security improvements that were shown to have worked in the 2018 voting and his suspicion that Democrats are trying to gain partisan advantage with a host of proposals. Republican colleagues say that Mr. McConnell, a longtime foe of tougher campaign finance restrictions and disclosure requirements, is leery of even entering into legislative negotiation that could touch on fund-raising and campaign spending.

National: Election Security Needs Increased Federal Investment | Lucas Ropek/Government Technology

July 31, 2019

Foreign interference is still an ongoing threat to state and local election security and can only be guarded against through increased federal assistance, warns a recently published report. Defending Elections, published by the Brennan Center for Justice, claims that state and local governments are on the “front line” of a “cyberwar” with foreign actors and hackers.…

National: States Rush to Make Voting Systems More Secure as New Threats Emerge | David E. Sanger, Reid J. Epstein and Michael Wines/The New York Times

Amid growing warnings about the security of American voting systems, many states are rushing to address vulnerabilities exposed by the 2016 election, even as intelligence officials worry they are fighting the last battle and are not sufficiently focused on a new generation of threats headed into 2020. Delaware has replaced its voting machines to assure paper backup that would provide a record in case of a breach. South Carolina’s State Election Commission said this month that it would introduce a paper-based voting system in January and planned to “build additional layers of security designed to harden the new system.” Yet Florida, home of the United States’ best-known presidential balloting problems, like hanging chads in 2000 and still mysterious Russian activity in 2016, once again seems far behind. And the fear among American intelligence officials is that the federal government and the 50 states may be making the classic mistake of believing their adversaries will use the same techniques again. “No one expects the Russians will use their old playbook” in the next election, said Suzanne Spaulding, who oversaw election security at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration and is now looking at how Russia is expanding its targets to undermine confidence in the American judicial system.

National: Has Congress already missed its chance to strengthen election security ahead of 2020? | Bryan Lowry/The Kansas City Star

Congress may have already missed its window to shore up state election systems against foreign cyber-attacks ahead of the 2020 election. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony this week on his investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election has reignited calls for the passage of a bipartisan election security bill. But Republican Senate leaders have balked at approving any such measure prior to 2020. GOP leadership said Mueller’s testimony did little to persuade them of the need for legislation. Moreover, one of the only GOP lawmakers pushing election security reforms on Capitol Hill said states have effectively run out of time to implement changes ahead of the next presidential election. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, told reporters Thursday that Congress should shift its focus to the 2022 mid-term election. “I’ve had folks say we need to hurry and get money out the door so they can buy new systems, that’s not going to happen for 2020. There’s no way to do it for 2020 because you can’t buy the equipment, get it in, test it, evaluate it, train your volunteers on it when the first primary is six months away,” Lankford said. “The discussion now is not about 2020. That’s already resolved. They’re not going to add new stuff unless it’s already currently in the pipeline. It’s really 2022 at this point.”

National: State election offices made for an easy target for Russian hackers | Andrew Eversden/Fifth Domain

In the months before the 2016 presidential election, one U.S. state received a notification from a federally-backed cybersecurity group, warning about suspicious cyber activity directed at its networks. The state IT officials did not share the alert with other state government leaders and as late at January 2018, the same officials reported nothing “irregular, inconsistent, or suspicious” took place before the vote. In fact, GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, had scanned one of the state’s “election-related” domains, according to a new Senate report. In another state, leaders did not turn over to the Senate which of its systems had been targeted by Russians. Officials told Senate investigators they hadn’t seen evidence of scanning or attacks on its election infrastructure. Instead, they told the committee that they had seen a “probing” of its state systems. Again, DHS told the committee that GRU had scanned the state’s Secretary of State website. And in a third state, officials told Senate investigators they had not noticed a connection between their systems and the IP addresses listed in a warning from the federal government. And again, DHS told the committee that GRU scanned the state’s government domain.

National: Bring Back Paper Ballots: Senate Intelligence Committee report shows how electronic voting systems are inherently vulnerable to hackers. | Fred Kaplan/Slate

Just hours after Senate Republicans blocked a vote on a bill to make elections less vulnerable to cyberattacks, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 67-page report, concluding that, leading up to the 2016 election, Russians hacked voting machines and registration rolls in all 50 states, and they are likely still doing so. The heavily redacted document, based on a two-year investigation, found no evidence that the hackers altered votes or vote tallies, though it says they could have if they’d wanted to. However, three former senior U.S. intelligence officials with backgrounds in cybersecurity told me that the absence of evidence isn’t the same as the evidence of an absence. One of them said, “I doubt very much that any changes would be detectable. Certainly, the hackers would be able to cover any tracks. The Russians aren’t stupid.” Hacking individual voting machines would be an inefficient way to throw an election. But J. Alex Halderman, a computer scientist who has tested vulnerabilities for more than a decade, testified to the Senate committee that he and his team “created attacks that can spread from machine to machine, like a computer virus, and silently change election outcomes.” They studied touch-screen and optical-scan systems, and “in every single case,” he said, “we found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and steal votes.”

National: Myriad election systems complicate efforts to stop hackers | Christina A. Cassidy and Colleen Long/Associated Press

A new Senate report on Russian interference in U.S. elections highlighted one of the biggest challenges to preventing foreign meddling: the limited powers and ability of the federal government to protect elections run by state and local officials. That has given fuel to those who argue that a larger federal role is needed. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued the first part of its report into Russian interference in the 2016 election on Thursday, noting that Russian agents “exploited the seams” between federal government expertise and ill-equipped state and local election officials. The report also emphasized repeatedly that elections are controlled by states, not the federal government. It called for the reinforcement of state oversight of elections — a view blasted as inadequate by Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the committee. He called on Congress to establish mandatory cybersecurity requirements across the country. “We would not ask a local sheriff to go to war against the missiles, planes and tanks of the Russian Army,” Wyden wrote. “We shouldn’t ask a county election IT employee to fight a war against the full capabilities and vast resources of Russia’s cyber army. That approach failed in 2016 and it will fail again.”

National: Mitch McConnell Received Donations from Voting Machine Lobbyists Before Blocking Election Security Bills | Nicole Goodkind/Newsweek

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell squashed two bills intended to ensure voting security on Thursday, just one day after former special counsel Robert Mueller warned that Russians were attempting to sabotage the 2020 presidential elections “as we sit here.” McConnell said he wouldn’t allow a vote on the bills because they were “so partisan,” but, as previously reported, earlier this year McConnell received a slew of donations from four of the top voting machine lobbyists in the country. “Clearly this request is not a serious effort to make a law. Clearly something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent,” said McConnell on the Senate floor. The plans would likely burden the two largest electronic voting machine vendors in the United States, Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Systems, with new regulations and financial burdens.

National: Russia Targeted Elections Systems in All 50 States, Report Finds | David E. Sanger and Catie Edmondson/The New York Times

The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Thursday that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia in 2016, an effort more far-reaching than previously acknowledged and one largely undetected by the states and federal officials at the time. But while the bipartisan report’s warning that the United States remains vulnerable in the next election is clear, its findings were so heavily redacted at the insistence of American intelligence agencies that even some key recommendations for 2020 were blacked out. The report — the first volume of several to be released from the committee’s investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference — came 24 hours after the former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III warned that Russia was moving again to interfere “as we sit here.” While details of many of the hackings directed by Russian intelligence, particularly in Illinois and Arizona, are well known, the committee described “an unprecedented level of activity against state election infrastructure” intended largely to search for vulnerabilities in the security of the election systems.

National: Mueller Warns of Russian Sabotage and Rejects Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Claims | Mark Mazzetti/The New York Times

Robert S. Mueller III warned lawmakers on Wednesday that Russia was again trying to sabotage American democracy before next year’s presidential election, defended his investigation’s conclusions about Moscow’s sweeping interference campaign in 2016 and publicly rejected President Trump’s criticism that he had conducted a “witch hunt.” The partisan war over Mr. Mueller’s inquiry reached a heated climax during nearly seven hours of his long-awaited testimony before two congressional committees. Lawmakers hunted for viral sound bites and tried to score political points, but Mr. Mueller consistently refused to accommodate them, returning over and over in a sometimes halting delivery to his damning and voluminous report. Mr. Mueller remained a spectral presence in Washington over the past two years as the president and his allies subjected the special counsel and his team of lawyers to withering attacks. Speaking in detail for the first time about his conclusions produced occasionally dramatic moments in which he ventured beyond his report to offer insights about Mr. Trump’s behavior.

National: Senate Intel finds ‘extensive’ Russian election interference going back to 2014 | Morgan Chalfant and Maggie Miller/The Hill

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released its long-awaited bipartisan report on election security and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Among the key findings of the report, the committee writes that “the Russian government directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure at the state and local level.” The report is heavily redacted in some areas and is 67 pages. The Senate panel, which has been investigating Russian interference for more than two years, released a summary version of its election security findings in May 2018. The panel released its redacted report one day after former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared on Capitol Hill to testify about his own 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump. The congressional document, which is the product of a bipartisan investigation led by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), recommended that officials give “renewed attention” to vulnerabilities in voting infrastructure, such as further securing voter registration databases.

National: Election infrastructure bill remains stalled as Senate Intelligence panel releases first volume of Russia report | Niels Lesniewski/Roll Call

As the Senate Intelligence Committee was releasing the first volume of its comprehensive report into Russian election interference in 2016, a Republican senator was making clear that he still wants to get support for encouraging states to have paper audit trails and to boost the ability of election officials to get timely security clearances. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who has been working with Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, told reporters Thursday that with the 2020 primaries and caucuses just around the corner, security enhancements would be meant for the next midterms. “The discussion now is not about 2020. That’s already resolved,” Lankford said. “They’re not going to add new stuff unless its already currently in the pipeline. It’s really 2022 at this point.” Lankford said that if he and Klobuchar can find a way to overcome objections from lawmakers concerned about undue federal influence in state and local elections, they will be looking for a legislative vehicle for their measure.

National: GOP blocks election security bills after Mueller testimony | Jotdain Carney/The Hill

Senate Republicans blocked two election security bills and a cybersecurity measure on Wednesday in the wake of former special counsel Robert Muellerwarning about meddling attempts during his public testimony before congressional lawmakers. Democrats tried to get consent to pass two bills that would require campaigns to alert the FBI and Federal Election Commission about foreign offers of assistance, as well as a bill to let the Senate Sergeant at Arms offer voluntary cyber assistance for personal devices and accounts of senators and staff. But Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) blocked each of the bills. She didn’t give reason for her objections, or say if she was objecting on behalf of herself or the Senate GOP caucus. A spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Under Senate rules, any one senator can ask for consent to pass a bill, but any one senator is able to object. The floor drama comes after Mueller warned about election interference during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, saying Russia was laying the groundwork to interfere in the 2020 election “as we sit here.” “We are expecting them to do it again during the next campaign,” Mueller said.

National: DEF CON Invites Kids to Crack Campaign Finance Portals | Kelly Sheridan/Dark Reading

A new challenge at this year’s DEF CON will let kid hackers take aim at simulated election campaign financial disclosure portals and use their findings to stage disinformation campaigns. DEF CON’s Voting Village and AI Village have teamed up with r00tz Asylum, a nonprofit dedicated to educating kids about white-hat hacking, to teach budding infosec enthusiasts ages 8–16 about digital threats to democracy. Like the Voting Village, which lets adults explore flaws in election infrastructure, r00tz Asylum gives kids a chance to poke holes in election security. Last year, r00tz Asylum made its first foray into election security. Kids used SQL injection to access and manipulate synthetic state election results websites, where they could change the candidates and displayed vote counts. It took two 11-year-old hackers just 15 minutes to crack a replica of the Florida Secretary of State’s website and change its vote count reports.

National: Democrats paint McConnell as ‘lead opponent’ to election security in new report | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Senate Democrats labeled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as “the lead opponent” to election security efforts in a report released Tuesday. The attack came as Democrats continue to push McConnell to bring election security legislation to the Senate floor. The report, specifically released ahead of the House hearings featuring special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday, details what the Democrats see as steps taken by McConnell since 1999 to resist election security and voting reform efforts. “For years, Sen. McConnell has fought to increase the impact of dark money and corporate spending in our elections,” the Senate Democrats wrote. “But now, after reportedly fighting efforts to expose Putin’s interference during the 2016 elections, Senator McConnell is blocking bipartisan reforms that would secure our elections from foreign interference.” The Senate Democrats pointed to efforts by McConnell and other Senate Republicans to block election security efforts in the Senate, accusing McConnell of “threatening the integrity of, and faith in, our democratic institutions.”

National: FBI Director Wray: Russia intent on interfering with U.S. elections | Doina Chiacu/Reuters

Russia is determined to interfere in U.S. elections despite sanctions and other efforts to deter such actions before the next presidential election in 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday. “The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections,” Wray said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Wray appeared at an oversight hearing a day before Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, was due to testify publicly before Congress about his two-year investigation of Russian interference to sway the 2016 presidential race toward President Donald Trump. “Everything we’ve done against Russia has not deterred them enough?” asked Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican committee chairman. “All the sanctions, all the talk, they’re still at it?” “Yes. My view is until they stop they haven’t been deterred enough,” Wray responded. Mueller’s investigation disclosed an elaborate campaign of hacking and propaganda during the 2016 presidential race and resulted in indictments that charged 25 Russian individuals and three Russian companies.

National: U.S. Elections Are Still Not Safe From Attack | Lawrence Norden And Daniel I. Weiner/Foreign Affairs

Russia’s attack on American elections in 2016, described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent report as “sweeping and systematic,” came as a shock to many. It shouldn’t have. Experts had been warning of the danger of foreign meddling in U.S. elections for years. Already by 2016, the wholesale adoption of computerized voting had weakened safeguards against interference and left the United States vulnerable to an attack. So, too, the shift to digital media and communications had opened new gaps in security and the law that could be used for manipulation and blackmail. Russia—and perhaps other powers like China and Iran—will likely try to exploit these vulnerabilities once again in 2020. The United States was caught flatfooted the last time. Now, nearly three years after the Russian efforts first came to light, the United States has made relatively little progress toward hardening its electoral system against interference. Each day it waits to do so raises the likelihood of another election tainted by significant foreign meddling. Fortunately, there are still measures that Congress, the Federal Election Commission, and other policymakers can take to substantially blunt a future attack. With just over six months remaining until the New Hampshire primary and the start of 2020 voting, lawmakers and executive branch agencies should make election security a priority by upgrading equipment, guarding against hacking, and combatting foreign influence operations.

National: First look at the DEFCON Voting Village | Eric Geller, Mary Lee and Natasha Bertrand/Politico

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and former 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) will speak at this year’s DEFCON Voting Village, MC can reveal. The lawmakers will join California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and former NSA national threat operations director Sherri Ramsay in the election security-focused corner of the cybersecurity conference, which runs Aug. 8-11 in Las Vegas. “The overwhelming interest we are seeing from government leaders demonstrates that securing our democracy is a national security priority,” Voting Village co-founder Harri Hursti says in a press release set to go out this morning, “and we need policy solutions that address the concerns brought to light each year by this Village.” The Voting Village sparked controversy last year when the National Association of Secretaries of State dismissed its findings about voting technology vulnerabilities by saying the test conditions were unrealistic. NASS said at the time that it looked forward to working more closely with the village’s organizers this year. That appears to have happened: This year’s event will “feature a significant increase” in government speakers, including “prominent state and local election authorities,” the organizers said. Other speakers will hail from the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Pentagon. And good news for attendees seeking a hands-on experience: Per the organizers, there will also be “a more extensive array of voting equipment” this year.

National: Microsoft Data Shows Hackers Still Targeting U.S. Elections | Alyza Sebenius and Kartikay Mehrotra/Bloomberg

State-backed hackers have attempted to infiltrate targets related to U.S. elections more than 700 times in the past year, furthering concerns about potential meddling in upcoming races, according to a blog posted Wednesday by Microsoft Corp. The hackers responsible are mostly from Russia and North Korea, said Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security & trust, in an interview. The company has counted nearly 10,000 hacks globally stemming from state-sponsored attacks in the past year. Of those, 781 have been to democracy-focused organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations and think tanks, and nearly all of those attacks, 95 %, are against U.S.-based organizations. “We have uncovered attacks specifically targeting organizations that are fundamental to democracy,” Burt wrote. “Democracy-focused organizations in the United States should be particularly concerned.” The attacks on democratic institutions are a likely precursor to hacking attempts on campaigns and election systems ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, according to the blog. However, the North Korea-based hackers may be conducting espionage on issues of special interest like nuclear disarmament, rather than seeking to hack elections, Burt said in the interview.

National: Russia Is Using Cold War Strategy to Undermine the Faith of Americans in the 2020 Election—Will It Work? | Adam Piore/Newsweek

Three events occurring in rapid succession on October 7, 2016, stand out in Robby Mook’s memory.The first came at about 3:30 pm. The Obama Administration issued a statement that publicly blamed Russia for hacking the Democratic National Committee and orchestrating the release of the thousands of emails roiling the Democratic Party, which, it said, were “intended to interfere with the US election process.” In the day’s crazy news cycle, that highly-unusual announcement never had a chance.At 4 pm, The Washington Post unveiled the infamous Access Hollywood Tape, on which then-candidate Donald Trump was recorded boasting about his own sexual harassment of women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”Within the hour, yet another media bomb dropped. Wikileaks released another trove of emails—the first 20,000 pages of 50,000 hacked emails stolen from the account of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Chairman John Podesta. “It was so clear what was happening,” recalls Mook, who at the time was a 35-year-old political operative running the Clinton campaign. In time, reporters would dig out old transcripts of paid speeches to Wall Street banks, controversial comments about Catholic voters and other documents that turned out to be damaging to the Clinton campaign. U.S. intelligence has since linked the Podesta trove to the Russian military.

National: Hill Democrats target McConnell in election security push | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

Congressional Democrats are banding together to sound the alarm on the looming security threats facing the 2020 elections — and bash the senator they believe is most responsible for legislative inaction. In a July 23 press conference scheduled one day before Special Counsel Robert Mueller heads to Capitol Hill to testify on his report that found “sweeping and systemic” efforts on the part of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 elections, a group of Democrats pledged to barnstorm around the country serving as “Paul Reveres” to warn about the continuing need for comprehensive election security legislation. They spent most of their time taking aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has become in many respects the primary target of ire for election security advocates after congressional Republicans acknowledged in a Rules Committee hearing earlier this year that he was blocking legislation from reaching the floor of the Senate. “The remarkable thing is on an issue where there is broad bipartisan support…McConnell has not brought a single piece of election security legislation to the floor even though the president’s own security team has said that we’re in jeopardy,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said.

National: Intelligence Chief Names New Election Security Oversight Official | Julian E. Barnes/The New York Times

An experienced official will oversee election security intelligence across the government in a newly created senior position, the director of national intelligence announced on Friday as part of an effort to improve coordination and speed response to attacks by foreign governments. Intelligence officials said the new post reflects the reality that influence operations by Russia, China and other countries are likely to continue indefinitely. Shelby Pierson, who worked on intelligence issues surrounding the 2018 midterm elections, was named to the post, which will cover both potential attacks on voting infrastructure and influence campaigns. Administration critics praised the appointment but said it did not obviate the need for a director at the National Security Council to coordinate not just intelligence but also the response to foreign interference campaigns. And critics in Congress warned that President Trump’s skepticism over foreign influence campaigns continues to undermine the government response. Ms. Pierson’s appointment will help intelligence agencies direct resources to election security and “bring the strongest level of support to this critical issue,” said Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, who called it an “enduring challenge.” Mr. Coats also said he was ordering all of the intelligence agencies with a role in election security to appoint a senior official to oversee issues of foreign influence and infrastructure attacks. These officials will form an Election Executive and Leadership Board to ensure intelligence agencies are properly focused on voting security issues.

National: “We’re not ready” for foreign election interference in 2020, says Rep. Adam Schiff | Eric Johnson/Vox

In May, Facebook refused to remove a deceptively edited viral video that made Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi look drunk — a decision that does not bode well for how Silicon Valley will handle disinformation and election interference in 2020, Rep. Adam Schiff says. And for that matter, he said on the latest episode of Recode Decode with Kara Swisher, Congress and the voting public aren’t prepared to deal with those things either. “The tech companies aren’t ready,” Schiff said. “They don’t have, I think, their policies fully thought out yet. The government isn’t ready. We don’t have the technologies yet to be able to detect more sophisticated fakes.” “And the public, by and large, when you bring up ‘deepfake,’ they don’t know what you’re referring to,” he added. “And so we don’t have much time. It’s eight months until the primaries begin to try to prepare the public, prepare ourselves, determine what other steps need to be taken to protect ourselves from this kind of disinformation.”

National: Election security to take back seat at Mueller hearing | Maggie Miller/TheHill

This week’s much-anticipated hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller promises to be full of high political drama. But election security — a key focus of the Mueller report — isn’t likely to garner much attention from lawmakers. Mueller is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees in back-to-back hearings Wednesday to discuss the findings of his 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The first volume of the report was devoted to Russian efforts to interfere in the elections through social media and hacking operations, with Mueller later emphasizing in rare public remarks that election security is an issue that “deserves the attention of every American.” “I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our elections,” Mueller said in a public statement to the press in May. His lengthy report detailed how Russian actors hacked into the computer system of the Democratic National Committee, engineered a social media disinformation campaign that favored President Trump and conducted “computer intrusion operations” against those working on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the wake of the report’s release, election security debates ramped up on Capitol Hill, with Republicans and Democrats strongly disagreeing on what steps, if any, Congress should take ahead of the 2020 elections. The Democratic-led House has passed several election security bills, while the GOP-controlled Senate has mostly avoided voting on them and others, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) citing concerns about federalizing elections and claiming agencies already doing enough to address the problem.

National: Microsoft reveals election-related investigation findings | CISO Magazine