Russian efforts to disrupt voting software and mislead U.S. election officials were much more intensive and targeted more states than was suggested in a leaked intelligence report published Monday, according to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“I don’t believe they got into changing actual voting outcomes,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told USA Today. “But the extent of the attacks is much broader than has been reported so far.”
The Intercept obtained a leaked National Security Agency document that showed Russian military intelligence tried to hack a U.S. voter registration software company and more than 100 local election officials. A young government contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, was arrested and charged with “removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet” the same day that the news site published the document.
Though Warner told USA Today that the leaker, whoever it is, “should be pursued to the full extent of the law,” he expressed grave concern that none of the Russian efforts to disrupt the U.S. electoral system “stopped on Election Day.”
The Virginia Democrat said he wanted intelligence agencies to publicize the names of election officials and states affected by Russian interference to ensure that no similar attempts are successful in the 2018 midterm races, per USA Today’s report.
Other Democratic lawmakers are joining the call for greater transparency on these explosive revelations. The Senate Homeland Security Committee’s top Democrat, Claire McCaskill (D-MO), said that the leaked document offered “verified information” of the Kremlin’s involvement in disrupting the U.S. presidential election and pressed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to take steps to protect voting systems.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), ranking Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which has oversight jurisdiction over federal elections, wrote a letter to national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster requesting that her panel receive a classified briefing on “the full extent of Russian interference in U.S. election systems.”
Klobuchar called the information surfaced in the Intercept document “deeply concerning,” and told McMaster it “goes beyond what was outlined in the December 2016 report from 17 U.S. intelligence agencies on Russian interference in our election.”
This week, a number of high-ranking current and former intelligence officials are scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers is slated to testify before the panel on Wednesday, while fired FBI Director James Comey is expected to testify on Thursday.
All three are expected to be asked about reports that President Donald Trump asked Comey to quash an investigation into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn, Warner told USA Today.
