The FBI on Friday issued a formal warning that a sophisticated Russia-linked hacking campaign is compromising hundreds of thousands of home network devices worldwide and it is advising owners to reboot these devices in an attempt to disrupt the malicious software.
The law enforcement agency said foreign cyber actors are targeting routers in small or home offices with a botnet — or a network of infected devices — known as VPNFilter.
Cybersecurity experts and officials say VPNFilter has infected an estimated 500,000 devices worldwide.
The FBI recommends any owner of small office and home office routers reboot the devices to temporarily disrupt the malware and aid the potential identification of infected devices," the bureau's cyber division wrote in a public alert.
"Owners are advised to consider disabling remote management settings on devices and secure with strong passwords and encryption when enabled. Network devices should be upgraded to the latest available versions of firmware."
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the bureau was working to disrupt the malware, which officials have linked to the cyber espionage group known as APT 28 or Sofacy.
Experts at Cisco’s threat intelligence arm Talos on Wednesday first called attention to VPNFilter, warning that hackers are ramping up malware attacks against Ukraine, infecting thousands of devices ahead of an upcoming national holiday in the country.
"While this isn't definitive by any means, we have also observed VPNFilter, a potentially destructive malware, actively infecting Ukrainian hosts at an alarming rate, utilizing a command and control infrastructure dedicated to that country," Talos wrote in a blog post.
"Both the scale and the capability of this operation are concerning. Working with our partners, we estimate the number of infected devices to be at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries."
The firm warned that VPNFilter could wreak havoc in a number of ways, from stealing website credentials to causing widespread internet disruption.
"The malware has a destructive capability that can render an infected device unusable, which can be triggered on individual victim machines or en masse, and has the potential of cutting off Internet access for hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide."
There has been extensive discussion of Russian efforts to hack into US voting systems (for example, see the report of the Director of National Intelligence from January of last year), and it is no longer in dispute that Russia was successful in ‘compromising’
a number of voting systems. Nor is it in dispute that many elements of
our voting system (not just the voting machines themselves) are
vulnerable to cyberattacks, and old-fashioned tampering, as explained in the excellent diary
from yesterday by DKos contributor Leslie Sazillo, which highlights the
work of Dr. Barbara Simons, an expert in computer security and voting
systems.
For all the efforts Russia engaged in over the course of years to
attempt to determine the outcome of the 2016 election, and install their
preferred candidate, and all that is publicly known of their
multifaceted operations to penetrate our voting systems, there are still
many here and elsewhere who hold onto the contention there is no direct
evidence that any votes, or vote totals, were changed.
That contention relies on the notion that Russia did everything in its capability to capture the election, from hijacking social media platforms to recruiting Americans
to assist them, and they breached various voting systems in dozens of
states, but the one the one thing they held back from doing, was change
votes themselves (even though, as the work of Dr. Simons and otherexperts show,
they could do so ‘invisibly’). Why would Putin hold back in this one
instance, when he has shown no such restraint in any other way?
The answer is, in all likelihood: he didn’t hold back. Claims that votes were not changed to ensure the election of Putin’s tool, are looking less plausible by the day.
An article by Dr. Eric Haseltine (in, of all places,Psychology Today) from last month, explicates why this is the case.
Eric joined the National Security Agency to run its Research
Directorate. Three years later, he was promoted to associate of director
of National Intelligence, wherehe oversaw all science and technology efforts within the United States Intelligence Communityas
well as fostering development innovative new technologies for
countering cyber threats and terrorism. For his work on
counter-terrorism technologies, he received the National Intelligence
Distinguished Service Medal in 2007.
A little more background on him, from Wikipedia:
Haseltine spent 13 years atHughes Aircraft, where he rose to the position of Director of Engineering. He then left forWalt Disney Imagineeringin 1992, where he joined the research and development group, working on large-scalevirtual-realityprojects. In 1998, he was promoted to senior vice president responsible for all technology projects.[1]In 2000, he was made Executive Vice President. Haseltine was head of research and development for Walt Disney Imagineering[2]by the time he left in 2002 to join theNational Security Agencyas Director of Research. From 2005 to 2007, Haseltine was Associate Director for Science and Technology,Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)—that organization's first—a position he described in a 2006US News and World Reportinterview by stating: "You can think of me as the CTO [chief technology officer] of the intelligence community"… Eric has 23 patents in optics, special
effects and electronic media, and more than 150 publications in science
and technical journals, the web, and Discover Magazine.
Seems reasonably qualified, and from his years at NSA, reasonably informed. Here’s his takeon tampering with vote totals:
HOW TO HACK AN ELECTION: AN INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS.
After the last presidential election, I heard one expert after
another reassure voters that the Russians could not have hacked voting
machines or state vote tallying systems on a scale large enough to tip
the presidential election…
As much as we’d all like to believe suchconfidentpronouncements,
my experience in the intelligence world, where I served as Associate
Director of National Intelligence, has lead me to one inescapable
conclusion—theoptimistic“experts”
are probably wrong, and all of us should acknowledge that our
unconscious (or not-so-unconscious) need to believe that our democracy
can’t be subverted by foreigners, blinds us to powerful
evidence to the contrary. And, after embracing this scary possibility,
we should do a lot more to secure our voting systems than we are doing
now…
The case for Russian tampering with the vote
Let me start by explaining the way intelligence professionals would
approach the question of whether the Russians, or other skilled actors,
could change the outcome of a U.S. election by tampering with voting.
Then I’ll show why intelligence-style analysis leads to uncomfortable
conclusions.
In making assessments about a state actor, such as the Russians,
intelligence analysts ask two questions: what are the intentions of this
actor and what are their capabilities?…
So, do the Russians intend to elect American candidates they prefer over those that we, the voters, prefer?
In a word, yes. In a rare display of unanimity, last year the U.S.
Intelligence Community assessed that Putin, acting through his
intelligence services, had indeed tried to tip the presidential
election. One of the Russian Intelligence’s scariest
accomplishments was to break into voter databases in 21 states (up to 50
states if you believe some sources). This success alone could
have influenced the election by dictating who could and could not vote.
In one target of Russian hacking, North Carolina for instance, some
legitimate voters (in a “blue” precinct, as it turns out,) could not
vote because the e-poll registration system used to allow voters to vote
erroneously asserted that some legitimate voters weren’t registered…
One more thing. You might be wondering whether, despite their
motivation to subvert our national elections, Russian leadership might
still hesitate to alter vote tallies out offearof
getting caught. Whereas the U.S. Congress responded to voter
registration hacks and email leaks from the Clinton campaign with
sanctions—a mere slap on the wrist—the U.S. just might view outright
alteration of vote counts an act of war and respond accordingly.
Sadly, I think the Kremlin views getting caught as more of agoodthing,
than a bad thing, because the net result would be favorable to Russia.
Based on the way we responded to Russian behavior in 2016, Putin knows
that a sizable portion of America—members of whichever major party the
Kremlin favored—would, by and large, accept the inevitable Russian
denials about vote tampering because we all believe what we want to
believe, particularly when believing Russia committed an act of war
could lead to armed conflict with a superpower…
In other words, if Russia were caught changing vote counts, America
would be even more divided than today: exactly what the Kremlin wants.
And the national will to respond to Russia’s provocation as an act of
war simply wouldn’t be there.
Russia wins if they don’t get caught and Russia wins if they do get caught; what’s not to like? (emphasis added)
Note that Dr. Haseltine makes reference to information that, rather
than the 39 states we know were in some way compromised, it may be the
voting systems in all 50 states the Russians accessed.
Dr. Haseltine goes into detail about the vulnerabilities of voting
systems, covering much of the same territory as Leslie’s review of Dr.
Simon’s work, so I won’t go through it here, but Dr. Haseltine’s summary
is well worth the read.
For our discussion, it’s his ultimate conclusion that warrants attention:
Adding up what we know about Russian intentions and
capabilities, and factoring in the vulnerabilities just listed, I
believe that it was entirely possible votes in the 2016 election were
tampered with, and that attempts could be made to compromise future
elections.
Why hold onto the notion that Russia didn’t try to change votes? (And
if they tried, there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t be ‘invisibly’
successful.)
Dr. Haseltine suggests it is simply not wanting to believe it to be true: “theoptimistic“experts”
are probably wrong, and all of us should acknowledge that our
unconscious (or not-so-unconscious) need to believe that our democracy
can’t be subverted by foreigners”.
Charles Pierce, at Esquire, echoes this view:
The last outpost of moderate opinion on the subject of the
Russian ratfucking during the 2016 presidential election seems to be
that, yes, there was mischief done and steps should be taken both to
reveal its extent and to prevent it from happening again in the future,
but that the ratfucking, thank baby Jesus, did not materially affect the
vote totals anywhere in the country. This is a calm, measured,
evidence-based judgment. It is also a kind of prayer. If the Russian
cyber-assault managed to change the vote totals anywhere, then the 2016
presidential election is wholly illegitimate. That rocks too many
comfort zones in too many places.
Putin isn’t playing.
Saturday, Mar 10, 2018 · 8:21:45 AM EST
·
ian douglas rushlau
DKos member Hudson Valley Mark
in a comment stressed the importance of communicating clear policy
goals to address the vulnerabilities of our voting systems, and his
point is well-taken.
Any new voting system should conform to the following principles:
1. It should use human-readable marks on paper as the official record
of voter preferences and as the official medium to store votes.1
2. It should be usable by all voters; accessible to all voters,
including those with disabilities; and available in all mandated
languages.2
3. It should provide voters the means and opportunity to verify that
the human-readable marks correctly represent their intended selections,
before casting the ballot.3
4. It should preserve vote anonymity: it should not be possible to
link any voter to his or her selections, when the system is used
appropriately. It should be difficult or impossible to compromise or
waive voter anonymity accidentally or deliberately.4No voter should be able to prove how he or she voted.5
5. It should export contest results in a standard, open, machine-readable format.6
6. It should be easily and transparently auditable at the ballot level. It should:
export a cast vote record (CVR) for every ballot,
in a standard, open, machine-readable format,
in a way that the original paper ballot corresponding to any CVR can be quickly and unambiguously identified, andvice versa.7
7. It should use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware components
and open-source software (OSS) in preference to proprietary hardware and
proprietary software, especially when doing so will reduce costs,
facilitate maintenance and customization, facilitate replacing failed or
obsolete equipment, improve security or reliability, or facilitate
adopting technological improvements quickly and affordably.8
8. It should be able to create CVRs from ballots designed for currently deployed systems9and it should be readily configurable to create CVRs for new ballot designs.10
9. It should be sufficiently open11to allow a competitive market for support, including configuration, maintenance, integration, and customization.
10.It should be usable by election officials: they should be able to
configure, operate, and maintain the system, create ballots, tabulate
votes, and audit the accuracy of the results without relying on external
expertise or labor, even in small jurisdictions with limited staff.
Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle
on NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens, knows a thing or two about
spying. He’s now released an app, Haven, that makes it easier to defend
yourself against the most aggressive kinds.
Haven, now in public beta, turns any Android
smartphone into a sensitive security system. It’s primarily intended to
be installed on a secondary phone — say, last year’s model — which then
takes photos and records sound of any activity in a room where it’s
placed. Haven will then send alerts of any intrusion to a user’s primary
phone over encrypted channels.
A
quarter of the members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council,
whose purview includes national cybersecurity, have resigned. In a
group resignation letter, they cited both specific shortfalls in the
administration’s approach to cybersecurity, and broader concerns that
Trump and his administration have undermined the “moral infrastructure”
of the U.S.
The resignations came Monday and were acknowledged by the White House on Tuesday. Nextgov has recently published the resignation letter that the departing councilors submitted. According to Roll Call, seven members resigned from the 27 member Council.
Several of those resigning were Obama-era appointees, including former U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil and former Office of Science and Technology Policy Chief of Staff Cristin Dorgelo.
Not surprisingly, then, the issues outlined in the resignation letter
were broad, faulting both Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris
climate accords and his inflammatory statements after the
Charlottesville attacks, some of which came during what was intended to
be an infrastructure-focused event.
“The
moral infrastructure of our Nation is the foundation on which our
physical infrastructure is built,” reads the letter in part. “The
Administration’s actions undermine that foundation.”
But
the resigning advisors also said the Administration was not “adequately
attentive to the pressing national security matters within the NIAC’s
purview, or responsive to sound advice received from experts and
advisors.” The letter also zeroed in on “insufficient attention to the
growing threats to the cybersecurity of the critical systems upon which
all Americans depend,” including election systems.
While he has ordered better security for government networks, Trump has shown little understanding
or seriousness when it comes to the broader issues surrounding, in his
words, “the cyber.” Most notably, he has refused to accept the U.S.
intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia engineered a hacking and
propaganda campaign meant to subvert the 2016 presidential election,
and even floated the idea of forming a cyber-security task force with Russia. The administration also missed a self-imposed deadline for presenting a comprehensive cyber-security plan.
In a report issued just after the mass resignations, the NIAC issued a report saying that dramatic steps were required to prevent a possible "9/11-level cyberattack."
On Monday, the Interceptpublished a classified internal NSA document
noting that Russian military intelligence mounted an operation to hack
at least one US voting software supplier—which provided software related
to voter registration files—in the months prior to last year’s
presidential contest. It has previously been reported that Russia
attempted to hack into voter registration systems, but this NSA document
provides details of how one such operation occurred.
According to the Intercept:
The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided
anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes
intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long
Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the US election
and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most
detailed US government account of Russian interference in the election
that has yet come to light.
While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s
understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the
underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A US
intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against
drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis
is not necessarily definitive.
The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further
into US voting systems than was previously understood. It states
unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military
intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence
Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the
document:
Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed
cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016,
evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and
hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that
operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing
campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.
A meeting arranged by Donald
Trump Jr. was held at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who
has connections to the Kremlin.Credit
Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton
before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during
the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House
briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.
The
meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J.
Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr.
Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in
confidential government documents described to The New York Times.
The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.
The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after Donald J. Trumpclinched the Republican nomination
— points to the central question in federal investigations of the
Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump
campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting
represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign
were willing to accept Russian help.
And
while Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed
meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump
Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving members of
his inner circle during the campaign — as well as the first one known to
have included his eldest son. It came at an inflection point in the
campaign, when Donald Trump Jr., who served as an adviser and a
surrogate, was ascendant and Mr. Manafort was consolidating power.
It
is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually
produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But
the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the
expectation was that she would do so.
In
a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the
Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries
were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information
that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic
National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were
vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information
was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no
meaningful information.”
He
said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children
and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian
human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian
children.
“It
became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the
claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the
meeting,” Mr. Trump said.
When
he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, he said only that it
was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Mark
Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, said on Sunday that
“Trump was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”
Lawyers
and spokesmen for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Manafort did not immediately
respond to requests for comment. In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said
he asked Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner to attend, but did not tell them
what the meeting was about.
American intelligence agencies have concluded
that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election
toward Donald J. Trump, in part by stealing and then providing to
WikiLeaks internal Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails that
were embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing the
material on July 22.
A
special prosecutor and congressional committees are now investigating
the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians. Mr. Trump has
disputed that, but the investigation has cast a shadow over his
administration.
Mr.
Trump has also equivocated on whether the Russians were solely
responsible for the hacking. On Sunday, two days after his first meeting
as president with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post:
“I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our
election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.....”
He also tweeted that
they had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that
election hacking, & many other negative things, will be
guarded...””
On
Sunday morning on Fox News, the White House chief of staff, Reince
Priebus, described the Trump Tower meeting as a “big nothing burger.”
“Talking
about issues of foreign policy, issues related to our place in the
world, issues important to the American people is not unusual,” he said.
But
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the leading Democrat on
the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels investigating
Russian election interference, said he wanted to question “everyone that
was at that meeting.”
“There’s
no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul
Manafort or with Mr. Kushner or the president’s son if it wasn’t about
the campaign and Russia policy,” Mr. Schiff said after the initial Times
report.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting,
is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky
Act.
The
adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of
the act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included
attempts to discredit the man after whom it was named, Sergei L.
Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in 2009 in mysterious
circumstances in a Russian prison after exposing one of the biggest
corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule.
Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 in Cleveland.Credit
Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
Ms.
Veselnitskaya’s clients include state-owned businesses and a senior
government official’s son, whose company was under investigation in the
United States at the time of the meeting. Her activities and
associations had previously drawn the attention of the F.B.I., according
to a former senior law enforcement official.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya said in a statement on Saturday that “nothing at all
about the presidential campaign” was discussed. She recalled that after
about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr. Manafort walked out.
She
said she had “never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and
“never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the
Russian government.”
The
Trump Tower meeting was disclosed to government officials in recent
days, when Mr. Kushner, who is also a senior White House aide, filed a
revised version of a form required to obtain a security clearance.
The Times reported in April
that he had failed to disclose any foreign contacts, including meetings
with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the head of a
Russian state bank. Failure to report such contacts can result in a loss
of access to classified information and even, if information is
knowingly falsified or concealed, in imprisonment.
Mr.
Kushner’s advisers said at the time that the omissions were an error,
and that he had immediately notified the F.B.I. that he would be
revising the filing.
In
a statement on Saturday, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said:
“He has since submitted this information, including that during the
campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with
representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during
transition. Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included,
out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person,
which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law Donald
Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to
cooperate and share what he knows.”
Mr.
Manafort, the former campaign chairman, also recently disclosed the
meeting, and Donald Trump Jr.’s role in organizing it, to congressional
investigators who had questions about his foreign contacts, according to
people familiar with the events. Neither Mr. Manafort nor Mr. Kushner
was required to disclose the content of the meeting.
A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment.
Since
the president took office, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have
assumed day-to-day control of their father’s real estate empire. Because
he does not serve in the administration and does not have a security
clearance, Donald Trump Jr. was not required to disclose his foreign
contacts.
Federal and congressional investigators have not publicly
asked for any records that would require his disclosure of Russian
contacts.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya is a formidable operator with a history of pushing the
Kremlin’s agenda. Most notable is her campaign against the Magnitsky
Act, which provoked a Cold War-style, tit-for-tat dispute with the
Kremlin when President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2012.
Under
the law, about 44 Russian citizens have been put on a list that allows
the United States to seize their American assets and deny them visas.
The United States asserts that many of them are connected to the fraud
exposed by Mr. Magnitsky, who after being jailed for more than a year
was found dead in his cell. A Russian human rights panel found that he
had been assaulted. To critics of Mr. Putin, Mr. Magnitsky, in death,
became a symbol of corruption and brutality in the Russian state.
An
infuriated Mr. Putin has called the law an “outrageous act,” and, in
addition to banning American adoptions, he compiled what became known as
an “anti-Magnitsky” blacklist of United States citizens.
Among
those blacklisted was Preet Bharara, then the United States attorney in
Manhattan, who led notable convictions of Russian arms and drug
dealers. Mr. Bharara was abruptly fired in March, after previously being asked to stay on by President Trump.
One
of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s clients is Denis Katsyv, the Russian owner of
Prevezon Holdings, an investment company based in Cyprus. He is the son
of Petr Katsyv, the vice president of the state-owned Russian Railways
and a former deputy governor of the Moscow region. In a civil forfeiture
case prosecuted by Mr. Bharara’s office, the Justice Department alleged
that Prevezon had helped launder money linked to the $230 million
corruption scheme exposed by Mr. Magnitsky by putting it in New York
real estate and bank accounts. Prevezon recently settled the case for $6
million without admitting wrongdoing.
Ms. Veselnitskaya was also deeply involved in the making of a film that disputes the widely accepted version
of Mr. Magnitsky’s life and death. In the film and in her statement,
she said the true culprit of the fraud was William F. Browder, an
American-born financier who hired Mr. Magnitsky to investigate the fraud
after three of his investment funds companies in Russia were seized.
Mr. Browder called the film a state-sponsored smear campaign.
“She’s not just some private lawyer,” Mr. Browder said of Ms. Veselnitskaya. “She is a tool of the Russian government.”
John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, testified in May
that he had been concerned last year by Russian government efforts to
contact and manipulate members of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Russian
intelligence agencies do not hesitate at all to use private companies
and Russian persons who are unaffiliated with the Russian government to
support their objectives,” he said.
Among those now under investigation is Michael T. Flynn, who was forced to resign as
Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after it became known that he had
falsely denied speaking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions
imposed by the Obama administration over the election hacking.
Congress
later discovered that Mr. Flynn had been paid more than $65,000 by
companies linked to Russia, and that he had failed to disclose those
payments when he renewed his security clearance and underwent an
additional background check to join the White House staff.
In May, the president fired the F.B.I. director,
James B. Comey, who days later provided information about a meeting
with Mr. Trump at the White House. According to Mr. Comey, the president
asked him to end the bureau’s investigation into Mr. Flynn; Mr. Trump
has repeatedly denied making such a request. Robert S. Mueller III, a
former F.B.I. director, was then appointed as special counsel.
The
status of Mr. Mueller’s investigation is not clear, but he has
assembled a veteran team of prosecutors and agents to dig into any
possible collusion.
Follow Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman on Twitter.
Maggie Haberman, Sophia Kishkovsky and Eric Lipton contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary
handling restrictions arrived at the White House.
Sent by courier from
the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown
to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.
Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing
deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and
discredit the U.S. presidential race.
But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific
instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at
least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her
opponent, Donald Trump.
At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S.
election were increasingly apparent.
Hackers with ties to Russian
intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party
computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a
year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between
Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000
emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online
by WikiLeaks.
Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say
Massimo Calabresi - Jun 22, 2017
The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.
In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.
The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.
Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.
“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation."
The
much-anticipated Senate hearing on Monday afternoon with former acting
attorney general Sally Yates and former director of national
intelligence James Clapper confirmed an important point: the Russia
story still poses tremendous trouble for President Donald Trump and his
crew.
Yates recounted a disturbing tale. She recalled that on January 26, she requested and received a meeting with Don McGahn, Trump's White House counsel.
At the time, Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials
were saying that ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security
adviser, had not spoken the month before with the Russian ambassador to
the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about the sanctions then-President
Barack Obama had imposed on the Russians as punishment for Moscow's
meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yates' Justice Department
had evidence—presumably intercepts of Flynn's communications with
Kislyak—that showed this assertion was flat-out false.
At that meeting, Yates shared two pressing concerns with McGahn: that
Flynn had lied to the vice president and that Flynn could now be
blackmailed by the Russians because they knew he had lied about his
conversations with Kislyak. As Yates told the members of the Senate
subcommittee on crime and terrorism, "To state the obvious: you don't
want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians." She
and McGahn also discussed whether Flynn had violated any laws.
The next day, McGahn asked Yates to return to the White House, and
they had another discussion. According to Yates, McGahn asked whether it
would interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation of Flynn if the
White House took action regarding this matter. No, Yates said she told
him. The FBI had already interviewed Flynn. And Yates explained to the
senators that she had assumed that the White House would not sit on the
information she presented McGahn and do nothing.
But that's what the White House did. McGahn in that second meeting
did ask if the White House could review the evidence the Justice
Department had. She agreed to make it available. (Yates testified that
she did not know whether this material was ever reviewed by the White
House. She was fired at that point because she would not support Trump's
Muslim travel ban.) Whether McGahn examined that evidence about Flynn,
the White House did not take action against him. It stood by Flynn. He
remained in the job, hiring staff for the National Security Council and
participating in key policy decision-making.
On February 9, the Washington Post revealed
that Flynn had indeed spoken with Kislyak about the sanctions. And
still the Trump White House backed him up. Four days later, Kellyanne
Conway, a top Trump White House official, declared that Trump still had
"full confidence" in Flynn. The next day—as a media firestorm
continued—Trump fired him. Still, the day after he canned Flynn, Trump
declared, "Gen. Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he has been treated
very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it, the fake media in many
cases. And I think it is really a sad thing that he was treated so
badly." Trump displayed no concern about Flynn's misconduct.
The conclusion from Yates' testimony was clear: Trump didn't dump
Flynn until the Kislyak matter became a public scandal and
embarrassment. The Justice Department warning—hey, your national
security adviser could be compromised by the foreign government that
just intervened in the American presidential campaign—appeared to
have had no impact on Trump's actions regarding Flynn. Imagine what
Republicans would say if a President Hillary Clinton retained as
national security adviser a person who could be blackmailed by Moscow.
The subcommittee's hearing was also inconvenient for Trump and his
supporters on another key topic: it destroyed one of their favorite
talking points.
On March 5, Clapper was interviewed by NBC News' Chuck Todd on Meet the Press
and asked if there was any evidence of collusion between members of the
Trump campaign and the Russians. "Not to my knowledge," Clapper
replied. Since then, Trump and his champions have cited Clapper to say
there is no there there with the Russia story. Trump on March 20 tweeted,
"James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus
colluded with Russia. The story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!"
White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly deployed this
Clapper statement to insist there was no collusion.
At Monday's hearing, Clapper pulled this rug out from under the White
House and its comrades. He noted that it was standard policy for the
FBI not to share with him details about ongoing counterintelligence
investigations. And he said he had not been aware of the FBI's
investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia that FBI
director James Comey revealed weeks ago at a House intelligence
committee hearing. Consequently, when Clapper told Todd that he was not
familiar with any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, he was speaking
accurately. But he essentially told the Senate subcommittee that he was
not in a position to know for certain. This piece of spin should now be
buried. Trump can no longer hide behind this one Clapper statement.
Clapper also dropped another piece of information disquieting for the Trump camp. Last month, the Guardian
reported that British intelligence in late 2015 collected intelligence
on suspicious interactions between Trump associates and known or
suspected Russian agents and passed this information to to the United
States "as part of a routine exchange of information."Asked
about this report, Clapper said it was "accurate." He added, "The
specifics are quite sensitive." This may well have been the first public
confirmation from an intelligence community leader that US intelligence
agencies have possessed secret information about ties between Trump's
circle and Moscow. (Comey testified that the FBI's counterintelligence
investigation of links between Trump associates and Russian began in
late July 2016.)
So this hearing indicated that the Trump White House protected a
national security adviser who lied and who could be compromised by
Moscow, that Trump can no longer cite Clapper to claim there was no
collusion, and that US intelligence had sensitive information on
interactions between Trump associates and possible Russian agents as
early as late 2015. Still, most of the Republicans on the panel focused
on leaks and "unmasking"—not the main issues at hand. They collectively
pounded more on Yates for her action regarding the Muslim travel ban
than on Moscow for its covert operation to subvert the 2016 election to
help Trump.
This Senate subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-S.C.), is not mounting a full investigation comparable to the inquiry
being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee (and presumably
the hobbled House intelligence committee). It has far less staff, and
its jurisdiction is limited. But this hearing demonstrated that serious
inquiry can expand the public knowledge of the Trump-Russia scandal—and
that there remains much more to examine and unearth.
If it turns out that Donald Trump’s campaign did, indeed, work with
the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton in last fall’s presidential
election, a majority of the country – 53 percent – thinks the president
should resign.
According to the explosive new poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP),
which debuted Wednesday night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the
American people said – by a 14-point margin – that Trump should step
down if there was collusion.
Another result revealed on Maddow’s program found that a plurality of
the country believes Trump’s campaign did, in fact, work with Russia to
swing the 2016 election in his favor.
If you’re keeping score at home: The American people think both that
Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia and that the president should
resign as a result.
While there is endless political polling released on a weekly basis
asking about hypothetical scenarios, what should be terrifying to the
White House is that the explosive Russia scandal is just one more
investigation or one more small piece of evidence away from making the
questions posed in the PPP survey a reality.
At that point, the president will have to face a country that doesn’t
just believe he isn’t doing a good job, as polls repeatedly suggest,
but also that he should no longer have the job at all.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) tried to conceal payments it
made during the 2016 election to a shadowy intelligence-gathering firm
for opposition research against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Politico reported on Friday
that the RNC paid $41,500 to the Hamilton Trading Group, a
Virginia-based private company run by former CIA operatives. The agency
worked with a former Russian spy to hunt for information that would show
conflicts of interest between Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and
her interests as a private citizen and leader of the Clinton Foundation.
Observers in politics and intelligence noted that it would be odd for
the RNC to make payments to Hamilton Trading given that the group
specializes in matters pertaining to Russia.
“RNC officials and the president and co-founder of Hamilton Trading
Group, an ex-CIA officer named Ben Wickham, insisted the payments, which
eventually totaled $41,500, had nothing to do with Russia,” wrote
Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel and Eli Stokols.
Wickham and the RNC initially claimed that the payments were in
return for building and security analyses of RNC headquarters in
Washington.
“But RNC officials now acknowledge that most of the cash — $34,100 — went towards intelligence-style reports
that sought to prove conflicts of interest between Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State
and her family’s foundation,” Politico said.
HTG produced two dossiers, both of which attempted to make a case
that Clinton directed U.S. interventions in Bulgaria and Israel on
behalf of energy firms that donated to the Clinton Foundation, said
individuals familiar with the documents.
Wickham told Politico in a Thursday interview that he floated the
building inspection story because “any other work we may have done for
them” was covered under a nondisclosure agreement.
“I’m not denying that I wasn’t totally forthcoming, but I’m telling
you why,” Wickham told Politico.
“The security stuff that we did, which
is legitimate, was not covered by any kind of a confidentiality
agreement, so I can discuss that.”
Last June, when the RNC filed financial disclosures with the Federal
Elections Commission (FEC), a $3,400 payment to Hamilton attracted
attention because the firm is not known for building security
consultations, but rather for espionage work related to Russia.
“Adding to the intrigue are the firm’s intelligence connections in Russia, where it was known to perform background checks and provide security services for American officials and companies,” said Politico.
The job was handed to former KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko, who declined to comment on the matter.
Wickham denied that his firm looked into any connections
between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, saying he has
“never had any contact with … Trump or Manafort or their people.”
Politico said the RNC has produced documents detailing a list of
Clinton-related issues it tasked Hamilton Trading with researching.
“We certainly are not widely known, as we have always been a two- to
three-man company and have done little advertising,” Wickham said,
adding that the firm has done anti-terror security consultations for
Amtrak and the International Monetary Fund’s offices in Moscow.
The MSNBC star said events that have unfolded during Trump’s time in
office show that “Russia may now be reaping its reward, maybe getting
what it wants out of the United States government as payback for running
the successful op that helped install the new head of the American
government.”
During the opening of her show, Maddow said that it’s one thing for
the Trump campaign and its officials to meet and seemingly work with the
Russians during the campaign – but it’s becoming apparent that the
election may have just been the opening act of Moscow’s operation.
The new developments that Wikileaks – the same folks that worked with
the Russians to expose hacked DNC emails last year – released a trove
of classified CIA material is further proof, Maddow says, that the
Russians are likely still trying to meddle in U.S. affairs at the
direction of Vladimir Putin. Instead of influencing an election, the
goal now seems to be disrupting and undermining U.S. intelligence
agencies.
Like usual, there is a connection between the latest WikiLeaks release and the President of the United States.
As Maddow pointed out, Trump supporter Nigel Farage, who recently had
dinner with Trump, met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange just two
days after the classified CIA information was reportedly released by the
organization. When asked why he was visiting Assange, Farage said he
“couldn’t remember.”
While the focus is rightfully on Russia’s involvement in last year’s
election and what connection the Russians had with the Trump campaign,
it’s also important to consider that Moscow now may be influencing our
government. In other words, the election may have just been the
beginning.
Maddow brings that point home:
The Russian government attacked our election. The Russian
government was in contact with multiple Trump campaign sources while
they were doing it. Russian nemeses in the American government – U.S.
State Department, CIA – are not faring well since Donald Trump came to
power. Is the operation that Russia started during the campaign, is it
over? Or are they still running it? Are we still in this now?
It’s unsettling to consider the possibility that Russia, after
helping put Donald Trump in the White House, is still influencing U.S.
affairs. But there is mounting evidence that Moscow’s work didn’t end on
Nov. 8, 2016 – that was only the beginning.
The
MSNBC host told America to "get back to the main point," which is that
it's slowly looking like the Trump campaign was working with Russia to
topple Hillary Clinton.
On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on Tuesday, the liberal superstar
dropped another Russian reality check on viewers, telling America to
“get back to the main point,” which is that it’s slowly looking like the
Trump campaign was working with Russia to topple Hillary Clinton last
year.
In her opening segment, Maddow focused on a so-far unsubstantiated
dossier released in January that details damning links between Trump and
high-ranking Russian officials. While Trump and his apologists try to
muddy the waters, point fingers, and deny any wrongdoing, more and more
of that controversial dossier has become verified as truth.
As Maddow said, pieces from that document continue to fall into
place, which is slowly raising the likelihood that Russia and Trump’s
campaign worked together.
Rachel Maddow notes that while the dossier of intelligence about Donald
Trump ties to Russia remains unconfirmed, pieces of it have checked out
upon investigation by the press, though the primary government
investigators are former Trump campaign officials.
Maddow said:
Forget all the salacious personal stuff. Forget all the
stuff that made the White House so mad when this was published. The
bottom line of this dossier, the bottom line allegation, the point of it
is that the Trump campaign didn’t just benefit from Russia interfering
in our presidential campaign. The point of this is that they colluded,
they helped, they were in on it. The money quote from this dossier is,
“The operation had been conducted with the full knowledge of Trump and
senior members of his campaign team.” That’s basically what this whole
dossier alleges – that the Trump folks were in on it. There were
multiple people close to Trump, involved in the Trump campaign, who were
in contact with the Russian government about the Russian government’s
attacks on Hillary Clinton, while those attacks were happening, while
Russia was waging these attacks. Overall, yes, we still have to describe
this as a sheaf of uncorroborated allegations, but little pieces
supporting that bottom line thesis really do keep falling in line.
Maddow then listed the series of Russian revelations – and secret
meetings between Trump associates and the Russian officials – that have
come out over the past several weeks, despite initial claims from the
president that nobody on his team met with the Russians during the
campaign.
It turns out that more than a half-dozen Trump associates are linked
to Russia, including Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, J.D.
Gordon, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Michael Cohen.
As Maddow noted in her coverage, it was reported by Politico
on Tuesday that one of those associates, Carter Page, was given
permission by the Trump campaign last year to make a visit to Russia in
the heat of the 2016 election cycle.
All of these bits of information are turning what was previous an
unverified dossier into a credible document implicating Donald Trump’s
presidential campaign in what would be the biggest political scandal in
U.S. history.
Even though there is so much going on in our politics right now, much
of it disturbing and distracting, we must not lose focus on this
scandal.
ALTHOUGH PRESIDENT Obama’s sanctions
against Russia for interfering with the U.S. presidential election came
late, his action on Thursday reflected a bipartisan consensus that penalties must be imposed
for Moscow’s audacious hacking and meddling.
But one prominent voice in
the United States reacted differently. President-elect Donald Trump said “it’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” Earlier in the week, he asserted that the “whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.”
No,
Mr. Trump, it is not time to move on. U.S. intelligence agencies are in
agreement about “what is going on”: a brazen and unprecedented attempt
by a hostile power to covertly sway the outcome of a U.S. presidential
election through the theft and release of material damaging to
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The president-elect’s dismissive
response only deepens unanswered questions about his ties to Russia in
the past and his plans for cooperation with Vladimir Putin.
For
his part, Mr. Putin seems to be eagerly anticipating the Trump
presidency. On Friday, he promised to withhold retaliatory sanctions,
clearly hoping the new Trump administration will nullify Mr. Obama’s
acts. Then Mr. Trump cheered on Twitter: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) — I always knew he was very smart!”
For
any American leader, an attempt to subvert U.S. democracy ought to be
unforgivable — even if he is the intended beneficiary. Some years ago,
then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned
of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor,” and the fear at the time was of a
cyberattack collapsing electric grids or crashing financial markets. Now
we have a real cyber-Pearl Harbor, though not one that was anticipated.
Mr. Obama has pledged a thorough investigation and disclosure; the information released on Thursday does not go far enough. Congress should not shrink from establishing a select committee for a full-scale probe.
Mr. Obama also hinted
at additional retaliation, possibly unannounced, and we believe it
would be justified to deter future mischief. How about shedding a little
sunshine on Mr. Putin’s hidden wealth and that of his coterie?
Mr.
Trump has been frank about his desire to improve relations with Russia,
but he seems blissfully untroubled by the reasons for the deterioration
in relations, including Russia’s instigation of an armed uprising in
Ukraine, its seizure of Crimea, its efforts to divide Europe and the
crushing of democracy and human rights at home.
Why is Mr. Trump
so dismissive of Russia’s dangerous behavior? Some say it is his lack
of experience in foreign policy, or an oft-stated admiration for
strongmen, or naivete about Russian intentions. But darker suspicions
persist. Mr. Trump has steadfastly refused to be transparent about his
multibillion-dollar business empire. Are there loans or deals with
Russian businesses or the state that were concealed during the campaign?
Are there hidden communications with Mr. Putin or his representatives?
We would be thrilled to see all the doubts dispelled, but Mr. Trump’s
odd behavior in the face of a clear threat from Russia, matched by Mr.
Putin’s evident enthusiasm for the president-elect, cannot be easily
explained.
It’s
almost over. Will we heave a sigh of relief, or shriek in horror?
Nobody knows for sure, although early indications clearly lean Clinton.
Whatever happens, however, let’s be clear: this was, in fact, a rigged
election.
The
election was rigged by state governments that did all they could to
prevent nonwhite Americans from voting: The spirit of Jim Crow is very
much alive — or maybe translate that to Diego Cuervo, now that Latinos
have joined African-Americans as targets. Voter ID laws, rationalized by
demonstrably fake concerns about election fraud, were used to
disenfranchise thousands; others were discouraged by a systematic effort
to make voting hard, by closing polling places in areas with large minority populations.
The election was rigged by Russian intelligence,
which was almost surely behind the hacking of Democratic emails, which
WikiLeaks then released with great fanfare. Nothing truly scandalous
emerged, but the Russians judged, correctly, that the news media would
hype the revelation that major party figures are human beings, and that
politicians engage in politics, as somehow damning.
The
election was rigged by James Comey, the director of the F.B.I. His job
is to police crime — but instead he used his position to spread innuendo
and influence the election. Was he deliberately putting a thumb on the
electoral scales, or was he simply bullied by Republican operatives? It
doesn’t matter: He abused his office, shamefully.
The
election was also rigged by people within the F.B.I. — people who
clearly felt that under Mr. Comey they had a free hand to indulge their
political preferences. In the final days of the campaign, pro-Trump
agents have clearly been talking nonstop to Republicans like Rudy
Giuliani and right-wing media, putting claims and allegations that may
or may not have anything to do with reality into the air. The agency
clearly needs a major housecleaning: Having an important part of our
national security apparatus trying to subvert an election is deeply
scary. Unfortunately, Mr. Comey is just the man not to do it.
The
election was rigged by partisan media, especially Fox News, which
trumpeted falsehoods, then retracted them, if at all, so quietly that
almost nobody heard. For days Fox blared the supposed news that the
F.B.I. was preparing an indictment of the Clinton Foundation. When it
finally admitted that the story was false, Donald Trump’s campaign
manager smugly remarked, “The damage is done to Hillary Clinton.”
The
election was rigged by mainstream news organizations, many of which
simply refused to report on policy issues, a refusal that clearly
favored the candidate who lies about these issues all the time, and has
no coherent proposals to offer. Take the nightly network news
broadcasts: In 2016 all three combined devoted a total of 32 minutes to coverage of issues — all issues. Climate change, the most important issue we face, received no coverage at all.
The
election was rigged by the media obsession with Hillary Clinton’s
emails. She shouldn’t have used her own server, but there is no evidence at all
that she did anything unethical, let alone illegal. The whole thing is
orders of magnitude less important than multiple scandals involving her
opponent — remember, Donald Trump never released his tax returns. Yet
those networks that found only 32 minutes for all policy issues combined
found 100 minutes to talk about Clinton emails.
It’s a disgraceful record. Yet Mrs. Clinton still seems likely to win.
If
she does, you know what will happen. Republicans will, of course, deny
her legitimacy from day one, just as they did for the last two
Democratic presidents. But there will also — you can count on it — be a
lot of deprecation and sneering from mainstream pundits and many in the
media, lots of denial that she has a “mandate” (whatever that means),
because some other Republican would supposedly have beaten her, she
should have won by more, or something.
So
in the days ahead it will be important to remember two things. First,
Mrs. Clinton has actually run a remarkable campaign, demonstrating her
tenacity in the face of unfair treatment and remaining cool under
pressure that would have broken most of us. Second, and much more
important, if she wins it will be thanks to Americans who stood up for
our nation’s principles — who waited for hours on voting lines contrived
to discourage them, who paid attention to the true stakes in this
election rather than letting themselves be distracted by fake scandals
and media noise.
Those
citizens deserve to be honored, not disparaged, for doing their best to
save the nation from the effects of badly broken institutions. Many
people have behaved shamefully this year — but tens of millions of
voters kept their faith in the values that truly make America great.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 7, 2016, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Rig an Election. Today's Paper|Subscribe
