at least since April, officials worry that in the final weeks of the campaign the Russian cybercapability could be used to fiddle with voter rolls, election-reporting systems and the media, resulting in confusion that could cast a shadow over both the next President and the democratic process. With Russia establishing beachheads in the U.S. “On a regular basis they try to influence elections in Europe,” President Obama told NBC News on July 26. Over the past 2½ years, Russia has executed a westward march of election meddling through cyberspace, starting in the states of the former Soviet Union and moving toward the North Atlantic. election is an extraordinary escalation of an already worrying trend. “It may be, but it may also be China, another country or individual.” “I do not comment on information I receive in intelligence briefings, however, nobody knows with definitive certainty that this was in fact Russia,” Trump told TIME in a statement. official familiar with the matter tells TIME.
Trump was informed of that assessment during a recent classified intelligence briefing, a U.S. intelligence community has “high confidence” that Russian intelligence services were in fact responsible, multiple intelligence and national security officials tell TIME. 26, he said it wasn’t clear the Russians were behind the DNC hack. Trump has praised Putin during the campaign, and at the first presidential debate, on Sept. Meanwhile, the FBI alerted all 50 states to the danger in mid-August, and the states have delivered evidence of a “significant” number of new intrusions into their election systems that the bureau and their colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security “are still trying to understand,” a department official tells TIME.Īll of which makes Donald Trump’s repeated insertion of himself into the U.S.-Russia story all the more startling. On the other, a murky network of Russian hackers and their associates is stepping up the pace of leaks of stolen documents designed to affect public opinion and give the impression that the election is vulnerable, including emails from the computers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
law-enforcement agencies are scrambling to uncover the extent of the Russian operation, counter it and harden the country’s election infrastructure. officials tell TIME, their evidence would not yet stand up in court.Īnd so with five weeks to go, the White House is, for now, letting events unfold. officials have “high confidence” that Russia is behind what they describe as a major influence operation, senior U.S. Senior intelligence officials even worry about Russia exposing U.S. National Security Council officials warn that our critical infrastructure–including the electricity grid, transportation sector and energy networks–is vulnerable to first strikes others say attacks on private companies, stock exchanges and the media could affect the economy. has powerful offensive and defensive capabilities there, an escalating confrontation carries significant risks. The President and several of his closest national-security advisers are concerned about the danger of a confrontation in the new and ungoverned world of cyberspace, and they argue that while the U.S.