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| Mikhail Svetlov for Getty Images |
- It’s definitely not the first time Russian hackers have tried to influence US elections, but the 2016 meddling was especially widespread, aggressive, and effective, intelligence officials told senators. [Vox / Alex Ward]
- There’s no question that this was done in an effort to try to help now-President Donald Trump get elected, which US intelligence officials surmised as far back as last summer. [NYT / Eric Lichtblau]
- What remains to be seen — and is the subject of several investigations — is whether the Trump campaign actively worked with the Russians to achieve this result.
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| John O. Brennan in July when he was the C.I.A. director. Mr. Brennan was said to be so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that in late August he began a series of individual briefings for eight top members of Congress. Al Drago/The New York Times |
- Yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on Russian meddling into the 2016 election got a lot less attention than the high-profile ones featuring former FBI Director James Comey, but they were still really important.
- US intelligence officials stated on Thursday that orders for Russian cyberattacks in the 2016 election could be traced all the way up to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. [WSJ / Byron Tau and Erica Orden]
- Officials also confirmed that voting systems in 21 states were targeted by Russian hackers, a number initially reported by Bloomberg last week. [WSJ / Byron Tau and Erica Orden]
- That number could be even higher; a former FBI cybersecurity official in the Obama administration told reporters that US intelligence assumed the Russians had tried to hack into all 50 states, with varying levels of success. [Time / Massimo Calabresi]
- Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday, administration officials declined to name the states whose election systems were hacked, despite being pressed by senators. [Bloomberg / Steven Dennis, Nafeesa Syeed, and Billy House]
- Arizona and Illinois are two of the states that have publicly acknowledged their voting systems were hacked. In Illinois, hackers were able to access the data of 15 million state residents, including their names, dates of birth, genders, drivers' licenses, and partial Social Security numbers. Hackers reportedly intended to alter or delete the data. [Bloomberg / Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson]
- In the wake of the hacking scandal, relations between the US and Russia have been deteriorating rapidly, especially as the US Congress tries to push tougher new sanctions on the country, to the Trump administration’s chagrin. [NYT / Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Matt Flegenheimer