Election hacking review ordered

Focus will be on presidential races

Washington — President Barack Obama has ordered a full review of hacking-related activity possibly linked to attempts to disrupt the November presidential election. He wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20.

The news came at a breakfast arranged by the Christian Science Monitor Friday morning.

“We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned,” Obama’s counterterrorism and homeland-security adviser, Lisa Monaco, told reporters, according to the Washington Post.

Deputy White House press secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the

review would include the three most recent presidential elections, and that Obama had ordered it to be concluded before the end of his term.

Schultz said there were indications of malicious cyberactivity in the 2008 and 2016 elections, but not the 2012. But given the recent concerns, the president ordered the intelligence community to “go back with what we know now to use every tool possible as a means of due diligence.”

“What the president asked for was a review of malicious cyberactivity tied to our election cycle. So it will be broader than just this past election,” he said.

Much of that review will be classified, but will be shared with Congress and state elections officials. “We’re going to make public as much as we can,” Schultz said.

“I think that this is going to be a deep dive. This will be a review that is broad and deep at the same time. They’re going to look at where the activity leads them to look at.”

“I want to be clear here that this is not an effort to challenge the outcome of the election,” he said. “The president has gone out of his way to provide for the seamless transition of power.”

U.S. intelligence officials have said they believe Russia attempted to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, including a hack of the Democratic National Committee’s email system.

An Oct. 7 joint statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security said, “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is

confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations.”

The specific instances outlined included:

Emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee

Emails from that hack given to WikiLeaks

Scanning and probing of state election-related systems

The activities were intended to interfere with the U.S. election process and are “not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there,” the statement said.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said Friday that Russia’s cyberattacks are no surprise to the House Intelligence Committee.

“I’ve said many times, the Intelligence Community has repeatedly failed to anticipate (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s hostile actions. Unfortunately the Obama administration, dedicated to delusions of ‘resetting’ relations with Russia, ignored pleas by numerous Intelligence Committee members to take more forceful action against the Kremlin’s aggression. It appears, however, that after eight years the administration has suddenly awoken to the threat.”

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said a full review of election-related cyberattacks was essential to protecting the integrity of democracy in the United States, and would have been whatever the outcome of the election.

“Any administration should be deeply troubled by Russia’s attempt to tamper with our elections,” she said.