Congress briefed on Russia hacking Source says Broward, Palm Beach counties were not affected
Florida members of Congress emerged from a classified FBI briefing on Thursday expressing frustration that they couldn’t tell their constituents the names of the two counties that had their elections systems hacked by the Russians in 2016.
Several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, said the FBI should declassify the information so voters know what happened.
Later, a source familiar with what the members of Congress were told said neither Broward County nor Palm Beach County was one of the counties affected in 2016. The person is not authorized to speak publicly about what lawmakers were told in their briefing.
That information backs up
assurances from Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade county elections officials that there were no intrusions on their systems.
Publicly, several members of Congress were critical of the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office.
At a news conference after the briefing they said they were told that 66 of 67 counties were using a system to detect attempts to infiltrate voting systems. Palm Beach County was the lone exception.
“I don’t understand that,” said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Broward-Palm Beach County Democrat who is co-chairman of the Florida congressional delegation. “It’s amazing to me.” U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat who represents most of Palm Beach County, said she was “particularly alarmed” about the information.
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said the information the FBI provided members of Congress is incorrect. Link was appointed in January by Gov. Ron DeSantis when he suspended former Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.
Link said she decided to get the so-called Albert sensor by the end of January. The hardware is now at her office, the software is arriving shortly, and the system likely will be operating by the end of June. “We are in the process of installing it,” she said. Albert sensors from the Center for Internet Security provide round-the-clock monitoring of government technology networks to identify potential threats.
U.S. Reps. Michael Waltz, R-St. Augustine, and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, asked for the briefing after the report on Russian election meddling from Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed the tantalizing revelation that the FBI was confident that “at least one Florida county” had been successfully infiltrated by software from Russian intelligence agents.
U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, DKissimmee, said the intruders gained “limited access.” Waltz said the FBI was “very clear” that election results were not affected.
Any meddling with voter registration information is less clear. “They have no evidence that the voter database was tampered with, but their level of confidence was unclear,” Waltz said.
U.S. Rep. Debbie MucarselPowell, a Miami-Dade/Monroe County Democrat, said, “We couldn’t get with certainty the verification that the Russians actually were not able to manipulate the data that they had access to. [The FBI] found no evidence of that, but they could not say with certainty that [the Russians] did not manipulate that data.”
Mucarsel-Powell said the FBI’s description of the intrusion suggested “they were able to enter the garage, not able to enter the house.”
The intrusions involved “spearphishing” emails from Russian intelligence to more than 120 Florida election office email accounts, which “enabled [them] to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government,” the Mueller report said. Gov. Ron DeSantis received his own classified briefing from the FBI last week, and on Tuesday revealed that the FBI told him it was two counties.
The governor said he had signed a non-disclosure agreement preventing him from disclosing the counties’ names. DeSantis, like the members of Congress on Thursday, said the FBI should declassify the information.
At a Washington news conference after their closed-door meeting with the FBI, Mucarsel-Powell, Murphy, Soto and Waltz were joined by U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Panhandle Republican. The five members of Congress at the news conference are all in their first or second terms.
Senior members of the congressional delegation didn’t appear at the news conference or declined to speak publicly, with several opting instead for prepared statements instead of answering questions.
“You know I can’t say what happened in a classified briefing,” Hastings said. He said 18 of the state’s 27 members of Congress were at the briefing.
“The FBI briefing brought home again the irrefutable fact that Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election, including the attempted hacking of Florida’s election process,” Frankel said.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Broward/Palm Beach County Democrat, said the FBI should reconsider its decision to keep information secret. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward/ Miami-Dade County Democrat, said the information provided to members of Congress is “deeply concerning, and investigators should not withhold this information from the real victims.”
Murphy said the public deserves to know what happened. ”This lack of transparency is counterproductive,” she said.
“It is untenable to continue to hold this information as classified and not let the public know,” Murphy said. “Especially those voters in the counties affected. This chaotic, drip-drab of information coming out is doing more harm for voters’ faith in the electoral system than just coming out and providing information, appropriately declassified.”
Waltz said the congressional delegation “has been asked by the FBI” to keep the names of the two counties confidential to protect “sources and methods” used to gather the information. Lawmakers said another reason for the secrecy is to protect victims, something that Democrats and Republicans scoffed at, arguing
that the public is the victim.
“We have very clearly and forcefully asked the FBI to declassify that information. We think the voters and Floridians deserve to know,” Waltz said.
U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Gulf Coast Republican and co-chairman of the congressional delegation,
said the hacking is a reminder that the U.S. remains vulnerable to cyber threats emanating from the Russian president.
“Vladimir Putin is not our friend,” Buchanan said. “He will keep doing this until we take swift and firm action to safeguard our system. His goal is to disrupt our electoral system and undermine our democracy.”