Russian hackers hit 21 US states’ vote systems

washington — Russian hackers targeted 21 US states’ election systems in the 2016 presidential race, a US official told Congress on Wednesday, but a former official testified that a video of Donald Trump bragging of sexual conquests distracted attention from Washington’s warnings.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin orchestrated a wide-ranging influence operation that included email hacking and online propaganda to discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and help Trump, a Republican, win the White House in November.

Jeh Johnson, who led the Homeland Security Department until the end of the Obama administration, said his department had issued warnings about hacking into voter registration databases.

But he told the US House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the election, that the notices did not get the attention he would have liked, blaming the emergence of a 2005 tape — in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women — for distracting the public.

The extent of interference by Russian hackers has been the source of speculation and media reports for months.

Jeanette Manfra, the Homeland Security Department’s acting deputy undersecretary of cyber security, disclosed publicly for the first time that a total of 21 states were targeted and said a small number of those systems were breached, although she reiterated there was no evidence any votes were manipulated. “As of right now, we have evidence that election-related systems in 21 states were targeted,” Manfra told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a separate hearing on Wednesday.

Asked why the Obama administration did not do more to warn the public, Johnson said: “We were very concerned that we would not be perceived as taking sides in the election, injecting ourselves into a very heated campaign.” —