Rex Tillerson told Fox News in Bogota, Columbia yesterday that there’s virtually nothing the U.S. can do to stop Russia if they decide to meddle in our 20148 elections. This is the kind of leadership Trump has brought to our State Department and the country. Since Trump has cozied up to Putin as if he’s his… Continue reading “Tillerson says we can’t stop 2018 Russia election meddling”
Via NBC News. Of course they did. And deleting names from registration rolls won’t leave a trace, because the names cease to exist and states don’t use audit trails:
The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn’t talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, “We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.”
Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, “2016 was a wake-up call and now it’s incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again.”
Watch Cynthia McFadden on Nightly News tonight for more
“We were able to determine that the scanning and probing of voter registration databases was coming from the Russian government.”
NBC News reported in Sept. 2016 that more than 20 states had been targeted by the Russians.
There is no evidence that any of the registration rolls were altered in any fashion, according to U.S. officials.
In a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, 79 percent of the respondents said they were somewhat or very concerned that the country’s voting system might be vulnerable to computer hackers.
I was really worried they were going to ram this through, but I’m pleasantly surprised!
WASHINGTON — The United States Supreme Court on Monday refused to stop Pennsylvania’s highest court from requiring lawmakers there to redraw the state’s congressional map, which the state court had found to be marred by partisan gerrymandering.
The Supreme Court’s order was expected, as the Pennsylvania court had based its decision solely on the state constitution. On matters of state law, the judgments of state supreme courts are typically final.
The order, which gave no reasons, came from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who acted without referring the case to the full court.
The Supreme Court has been busy lately addressing cases on partisan gerrymandering, in which the party in power draws voting districts to give its candidates lopsided advantages. It is considering two such cases, from Wisconsin and Maryland, and has intervened in a third one, from North Carolina. But all of those cases were decided by federal courts.
The latest decision, from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, struck down the state’s congressional map, saying it “clearly, plainly and palpably” violated the state’s Constitution. The court told state lawmakers to redraw the state’s 18 House districts, which currently favor Republicans, and it left open the possibility that it would impose its own map.
Americans may be furious that Donald Trump is putting Russian interests before ours by refusing to implement bipartisan sanctions designed to punish Russia for meddling in our election on his behalf – but Russian state television hosts sure are happy about it. Continue reading “‘Trump is ours again’”
To be clear, Watergate involved criminality, which very well may not end up getting documented in the case of Trump or his top aides. And it’s also very possible that Trump will not end up trying to remove Mueller. But as Weiner pointed out to me, Trump has already waged war on the Justice Department in ways that have already been “extraordinarily reckless and dangerous for nigh on to a year.” And it’s too early to know how much more damage might be wrought, since we can’t predict the consequences of the differences between the Nixon era and our own — particularly that massive propaganda network and the influence it could have on Trump and/or congressional Republicans.
“We are seeing a repeat of Watergate at warp speed,” Weiner tells me. “If Trump moves to tear down the temple by firing Mueller and Rosenstein and putting in a platoon of stooges in charge of the administration of justice, and if Congress does nothing, then it will be beyond anything that Watergate presented.”
Sure, maybe none of this will end up happening. But go read David Leonhardt’s compilation of all the things Trump has already done to obstruct justice, and tell me whether you think that’s a slam-dunk bet.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who spent three months last year as acting director of the agency, stepped down from his position Monday, sources told multiple news outlets. RELATED: A Washington … Continue reading “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe forced out”
Fox Business’ Stuart Varney really pushed the new “secret society” conspiracy theory created by Sen. Johnson or as he put it a “cabal” within the FBI that wants to destroy Trump to Fox News top legal analyst. Stuart Varney defends every conspiracy theory that supports Trump. That’s his job. The Fox Business host always brings on… Continue reading “Fox still pushing the alleged FBI plot to take Trump down”
The FBI is investigating whether money was illegally used by a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin to funnel money to the National Rifle Association in order to help Donald Trump win the presidency, McClatchy reports. The NRA spent $30 million to help elect Trump during the 2016 campaign. McClatchy was told by two… Continue reading “The NRA just got Mueller-ed: Russian-linked money may have been used to help Trump win election”
Nice to see some hardball, two days in a row! Here’s the link.
Despite the clear assaults on our democracy and our allies in Europe,
the U.S. government still does not have a coherent, comprehensive,
and coordinated approach to the Kremlin’s malign influence
operations, either abroad or at home. Although the U.S.
government has for years had a patchwork of offices and programs
supporting independent journalism, cyber security, and the countering
of disinformation, the lack of presidential leadership in addressing
the threat Putin poses has hampered a strong U.S. response.
In early 2017, Congress provided the State Department’s
Global Engagement Center the resources and mandate to address
Kremlin disinformation campaigns, but operations have been stymied
by the Department’s hiring freeze and unnecessarily long
delays by its senior leadership in transferring authorized funds to
the office. While many mid-level and some senior-level officials
throughout the State Department and U.S. government are cognizant
of the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s asymmetric arsenal, the
U.S. President continues to deny that any such threat exists, creating
a leadership vacuum in our own government and among our
European partners and allies.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday released the full transcript of the panel’s interview with Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the firm that researched President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Continue reading “Sen. Dianne Feinstein releases Fusion GPS transcript, escalating dispute with Republicans over Russia probe”
