you know, and then robert mueller brought up the very real issue of election security. saying as we sit here, we are under attack from the russians in all likelihood in our election. the senate intelligence committee put out a report yesterday that says all 50 states there are 50 states in the united states and all of them were targeted by the russians in the last election. on that very same day, mitch mcconnell and republican senators blocked legislation to protect state election systems. is our government taking this seriously enough? well, definitely not. and i think what happened this week is that most of the attention was paid to the house judiciary committee hearing which was the first of the hearings because many wanted to know is there going to be a got ya moment, a smoking gun relative to the president. that didn t pan out. in the intel hearing that followed, robert mueller was
ago lot of red flags. that s right, urging states and the federal government to do more, saying the russian government exploited divisions between state governments and the federal government, in saying that this is something that needs to be shored up in the elections ahead. one of the recommendations they do make here is to ensure there are backup paper ballots throughout state election systems to ensure if there s any nefarious activity, there s something to back it up to make sure election results are sufficient and that they are accurate portrayal of how voters actually came down. the committee also found, they said no evidence of trying to manipulate vote tallies, but they say the intelligence committee does not have a window into exactly how votes may have been affected back in the 2016 elections, but they make clear in the 67-page bipartisan report that there was extensive the russian government between the years of 2014 and 2017, all
witness the russians going in to try to influence or try to penetrate state election systems, hack into those systems. does this report what we re hearing from the fbi director from mueller, does that really capture the enormity of what s going on? yeah. this report is very consistent with what i witnessed firsthand. it s also timely. let me explain why. first it s important. now the world knows. not only do representatives on the national security counsel and in the intelligence community and at the white house, not only are they aware of it, but now the american people are aware. and now they know that starting in 2014 a large scale coordinated campaign to disrupt the 2016 presidential election took place and behind it was the russian government. okay? and this is also very timely. why? because now is the time we need to take action to make sure this doesn t happen again in 2020. what are you hearing, evan? what needs to be done to fix
made democrats on capitol hill angry up in arms and i suspect we ll see them continue to try to bring these measures to the senate floor. all right. sunlen, thank you. let s get some more on these warnings about russian election meddling. joining us now evan perez and anthony ferante. he was in charge of cyber incident response for the national security consulate and also one of the first people to see the russians hacking into state election systems. guys, thank you for coming in. this was an attempt if you believe all the reports, evan, and i think they re very credible, that the russians want to not only undermine u.s. national security by sewing dissent, things like that, but actually going into state and federal election systems and trying to change the outcome. that s right. and look, so far according to this report, there s no
another topic as we continue to analyze the widening pool of candidates in the presidential race. we re still grappling with issues involving election security. earlier the house homeland security committee held its first hearing for this year about protecting state election systems. the hearing is part of an effort in the house to pass broad legislation that contains provisions requiring states to use paper ballots and other security upgrades. among the goals brought up by the director of si yoor of cybe was how voters find information about our voting system. that is the key. understanding what is happening across the process is critically important. we have to do more awareness building in this country and introduce critical thinking and reinforce critical thinking as we re hit with information and it s easy to click like and forward on.