Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Homeland chief says discord Russian aim
Nielsen criticized after saying she is unaware of report Putin favored Trump
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Tuesday that she was unaware of intelligence assessments concluding that Russia favored President Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
The U.S. intelligence community said in a January 2017 assessment that Russia had tried to influence the election to benefit Trump.
“I do not believe I’ve seen that conclusion that the specific intent was to help President Trump win. I’m not aware of that,” Nielsen said, responding to a reporter’s question after briefing House members on election security efforts.
She said she believed the Russians have attempted to manipulate public confidence on both sides.
“We’ve seen them encourage people to go to a protest on one side. We’ve seen them simultaneously encourage people to go to that same protest on the other side. So I think what they’re trying to do, in my opinion, and I defer to the intel community, is just disrupt our belief in our own understanding of what’s happening.”
A spokesman for the department later said Nielsen had reviewed the intelligence community’s assessment and agrees with it but said the intelligence assessment language “is nuanced for a reason.”
“Importantly, they targeted both major political parties. As the secretary reiterated — their intent was to sow discord in the American electoral process,” said the spokesman, Tyler Houlton.
Trump has expressed skepticism over whether the Russians tried to help him win the election.
But the Senate Intelligence Committee said last week that it agrees with the intelligence agencies’ assessment. That was at odds with Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, who said that while Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to hamper Clinton’s campaign, that didn’t mean he wanted to help Trump.
The House committee said the intelligence agencies failed to use “proper analytic tradecraft” when they assessed Putin’s intentions.
The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, Mark Warner, sent out a list a list of three separate occasions where the report of Russia’s attempt to sway the election was made public. And Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he’d personally deliver Nielsen a copy.
“This report is over a year old, has stood the test of time, was agreed to by the entire Intelligence Community, and was backed up by Senate investigators,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, while primary elections were underway in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and Texas, Nielsen and FBI Director Christopher Wray sought to assure lawmakers that they are working with states to ensure the security of U.S. elections.
“This is an issue that the Administration takes seriously and is addressing with urgency,” the officials said in a joint statement released after top intelligence officials privately briefed House members. The officials said they highlighted efforts to protect “critical infrastructure” for elections.
Democrats have questioned whether the Trump administration has acted forcefully enough to prevent other countries from meddling with U.S. election results.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said after the meeting that “I don’t feel confident” that the Homeland Security Department and other agencies are doing enough to secure future elections. Much of the briefing focused on Russia, but there are “others out there” seeking to do the same thing, he said.
“I didn’t walk away thinking that we’re there yet” in terms of being prepared, he said. Information for this article was contributed by Jill Colvin, Colleen Long and Padmananda Rama of The Associated Press; and by Nafeesa Syeed and Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News.