POLITICUSUSA
Republicans in the House of Representatives have put forward a spending bill that excludes new money for election security grants to states, causing an outcry from furious Democrats.
Amid a firestorm of controversy about President Trump’s denial of Russian election interference there was an expectation that the House would fund a bipartisan approach that would help states protect themselves from cyber attacks and other threats to election security.
Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was on television Sunday morning making excuses for Russian interference in U.S. elections.
Cybersecurity experts have recently discovered a new website operated from Russia that was created for the express purpose of interfering with and disrupting the 2018 midterm elections in the United States.
People of a certain age will recall the great 1966 comedy film by Norman Jewison called “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” It is about a Soviet submarine that gets stranded on an island off the coast of New England, and it hilariously captures the paranoia that was rampant during the Cold War.
Europeans are now doing what Donald Trump is afraid to do: Accusing Russia directly for spreading fake news and interfering in the governments of western democracies. They also are taking concrete steps to combat what they say is a rising threat from Putin’s government. Hopefully Trump and Congress will follow their lead and actually do something to fight back against Russian interference in U.S. elections.
On March 22nd the Washington Post published an article about the new spending bill which contained this small item which did not generate a lot of publicity at the time: “The bill provides $380 million to the federal Election Assistance Commission to make payments to states to improve election security and technology, and the FBI is set to receive $300 million in counterintelligence funding to combat Russian hacking.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mitt Romney would be Secretary of State if it were not for Russian influence.
In an article published Thursday morning the Journal reported:
“Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online “trolls” flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.”
The CIA remains confident in its conclusion that Russia waged a disinformation campaign in the U.S. to influence the election in Donald Trump's favor.
The fact that Mueller is requesting Air Force One phone records shows that he is clearly ramping up his inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice.
A number of the president's lawyers wanted Kushner out, worrying that he would become a legal liability as the special counsel investigation intensified.
It's becoming increasingly hard to believe that Trump had no idea what some of his closest advisers were up to with respect to Russia.