28 June, 2017
Cyber hackers were reportedly successful in altering the voter rolls of at least one election system and also managed to steal thousands of voter records containing private information about Americans during the 2016 presidential election. Johnson faces questions on june 21, 2017, about Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election as the House intelligence committee presses ahead with its investigation.
Trump also questioned why the Obama administration didn't do more to stop the hacking by Russian operatives that occurred last summer and fall. "Why didn't they stop them?" the president tweeted, shortly following with "...
Appearing in public before the US Senate Intelligence Committee were Samuel Liles, acting director of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), Cyber Division, and Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and comms at the DHS' National Protection and Programs Protectorate. "It's all a big Dem HOAX!", Trump said.
Jeh Johnson, who led the Homeland Security Department until the end of the Obama administration, added that his department had issued warnings about hacking into voter registration databases.
"The big issue, and let's not lose sight of it, the big issue is the cyber intrusions on our democracy previous year and how to prevent that from happening in the future for the sake of our democracy", Johnson added.
"I believe the Russians will absolutely try to continue to conduct influence operations in the USA", which will include cyberattacks, Priestap said.
DHS officials repeatedly said they do not believe that an attempt by nation-backed hackers to change votes in a national, state or local election would be able to escape notice.
"Prior to Election Day, I also personally reviewed with the CEO of The Associated Press its long-standing election-day reporting process, including the redundancies and safeguards in its systems", Johnson said.
At a separate hearing, a current Homeland Security official, Jeanette Manfra, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the agency has evidence that Russian Federation targeted election-related systems in 21 of the 50 USA states. "From whom? And with what level of knowledge?" said Michael Bahar, the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee.
Johnson testified his agency was rebuffed by Democratic officials when they offered to help thwart the Russian intrusion into their computer files.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson speaking at a conversation with students about border security in the 21st century at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona.
Johnson was asked by Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy whether he had seen evidence of collusion or coordination between Trump and associates and Russian Federation while he was still in office.
The extent of interference by Russian hackers has been the source of speculation and media reports for months.
"We were very concerned that we would not be perceived as taking sides in the election, injecting ourselves into a very heated campaign", Johnson told the committee.
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he hoped Russian Federation would be able to uncover missing emails from Hillary Clinton.
It's been said many times, but witnesses reiterated they have no doubt that Russian Federation itself was behind efforts to intervene in the U.S. election and were also very confident that no votes were changed in the process. I would raise awareness among state election officials as well as, you know, public in general, employees of state governments, raise awareness about the evils and the hazards of spear phishing.
