Hearing breaks along stark partisan lines

WASHINGTON» A congressional hearing on election security broke along stark political lines Tuesday, highlighting the difficulties in getting lawmakers to address the threat outlined by federal officials who have warned that Russia and other adversaries are looking to interfere in the 2020 election and illicitly shape voter opinion.

The divide was on display at a

House Judiciary Committee hearing, which also underscored the absence of bipartisan consensus about the foreign threat to American voting and about how best to safeguard the country’s election system heading into next year’s vote.

Democrats largely confined their questioning to the ambitions and capabilities of foreign governments and pressed federal officials about whether they had the resources they need to prepare for and respond to any potential problems.

Multiple Republicans used the hearing to call into question the integrity of the FBI, rail against House Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump and advance unproven theories pushed by the president that Ukraine may somehow have interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Several brought up Peter Strzok, the agent fired last year for derogatory text messages about Trump that he sent while helping lead the investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The hearing also touched on the public’s right to know when a particular electoral system is hacked. The issue arose after members of Florida’s congressional delegation complained that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security would not publicly identify the two counties where Russian hackers gained access to voter databases before the 2016 election.