Democracy in the ‘crosshairs,’ top U.S. security official says
WASHINGTON — The White House put five top national security officials in the briefing room Thursday to stress how seriously the administration is taking the threat of Russia’s ongoing interference in U.S. elections.
“We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States,” said the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, speaking just three months before balloting that will determine control of Congress. The rare joint appearance by Coats, FBI director Christopher Wray, Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, White House national security adviser John Bolton and National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone came amid ongoing criticism that the administration isn’t taking the threat of Russian interference seriously.
Such bipartisan talk has escalated in the nearly three weeks since Trump, at the summit in Helsinki, Finland, publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial of meddling in the 2016 election over the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions to the contrary. In recent days, senators from both parties have said they’ve been the targets of cyberattacks — atnd criticized Trump’s seeming inattention.
“The intelligence community has been very active on this,” Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, said on CNN on Thursday, but the president “has been the only one in the government that hasn’t been paying attention to this.”
Lankford, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, also said he “would be shocked if there’s a senator that hasn’t been targeted.” The White House’s latest damage-control effort occurred a week after the president for the first time convened a meeting of his National Security Council on the subject of election interference. The session lasted less than an hour before Trump departed for his golf club in New Jersey and did not produce any new initiatives. Bolton also released a letter responding to an inquiry about last week’s meeting from five Democratic senators, in which he said that it was the second such meeting focused on foreign election interference.
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday canceled an official visit to Central and South America as a possible agreement to halt the violence and ease tensions along its border with the Gaza Strip appeared to be emerging.
An Israeli government official said the trip, during which Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with the presidents of Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and Honduras, was being canceled “due to the situation in the south.”
The Israeli government also announced it had set a security Cabinet meeting for Sunday to discuss progress on a potential deal that the United Nations and Egypt are mediating with Hamas, the Islamist militia that rules the Palestinian Gaza Strip. One official called the negotiations “a breakthrough.”
But previous efforts to achieve a long-term truce between Israel and Gaza have fallen apart, though this marked the first time that the Israeli government has made reference to a possible arrangement. No details were released on what the agreement might include.
A truce would end four months of deadly protests on the Gazan side of the border and would likely lift Israeli measures, both military and economic, that have aggravated the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Some 136 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since the protests began.
Gaza has also been hurt by a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in an uprising in 2007, making life increasingly tough with electricity shortages, rising unemployment and growing poverty.
President Donald Trump’s decision in January to slash American funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, an agency founded in 1949 to provide support for the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 ArabIsraeli War, has deepened the level of hurt by reducing many basic services in Gaza.
In the latest crackdown, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday ordered that all fuel and gas imports to Gaza be halted, a directive that was in response to Hamas’ ongoing campaign of launching balloons and kites carrying incendiary devices into Israel. The aerial attack has been blamed for starting dozens of fires that have burned farmland and forests.
The possibility of a truce first arose Sunday when Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, announced “a productive day of meetings” with Egyptian officials to “deescalate the situation in Gaza, resolve all humanitarian issues and support (the) Egyptian-led reconciliation process.”
In the last week, Mladenov has met with senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, in Jerusalem and with Hamas officials in Gaza.
In another indication that a deal may be at hand, Hamas’ deputy leader, Saleh Arouri, arrived in Gaza late Thursday as part of a delegation of the organization’s officials exiled in Qatar.
Israel regards Arouri as a criminal. He was given assurances that he would not be detained or harmed.
Meanwhile, several initiatives to relieve the harsh living conditions in Gaza have been rolled out.
Without announcement, the Trump administration recently released several million dollars in funds to Palestinian Authority security forces that cooperate with Israel to maintain security in the West Bank. And a State Department spokesperson told National Public Radio that it is scrutinizing other Palestinian aid projects to determine their “value to U.S. taxpayers.”
Special correspondent Tarnopolsky reported from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Hana Salah reported from Gaza City.